A Knight's Tale (2001) Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Rufus Sewell, Paul Bettany, Shannyn Sossamon, Alan Tudyk, Laura Fraser. Written and directed by Brian Helgeland. 128 minutes. Rated PG-13, 3 stars (out of five stars)
Review by Ed Johnson-Ott, NUVO Newsweekly www.nuvo.com Archive reviews at http://us.imdb.com/ReviewsBy?Edward+Johnson-Ott To receive reviews by e-mail at no charge, send subscription requests to ejohnsonott@prodigy.net or e-mail ejohnsonott-subscribe@onelist.com with the word "subscribe" in the subject line.
NOTE: A feature on Heath Ledger follows this review.
After watching "A Knight's Tale" the first time, I scanned my notes and saw a laundry list of flaws. The film is sloppy, self-indulgent and about 20 minutes too long. The story is, to put it kindly, overly familiar. And jousting, no matter how cleverly shot, is one dull damned sport. But regardless of all its failings, I liked the movie. The central characters were endearing and I loved the camaraderie between them. Last weekend, I attended another advance screening of the film and, to my surprise, enjoyed it even more the second time around. "A Knight's Tale" is a mess, but it's my kind of mess.
Writer/director Brian Helgeland, who won an Oscar for the "L.A. Confidential" screenplay, takes the story of a young man pretending to be a knight and plays fast and loose with the particulars. Although it is set in the 14th century, the characters talk like 21st century folks. The Nike logo turns up on a suit of armor. A princess wears a variety of attractive, but bizarre, outfits that do not fit the time period, including one number that looks like something Audrey Hepburn wore in "Breakfast at Tiffany's." As if all that wasn't enough, the orchestral score is spiced with a number of classic rock songs, from Queen's "We Will Rock You" to War's "Low Rider." Purists are already howling about the movie, of course, but who cares? What Helgeland does here is fun.
A side note: One critic accuses the filmmaker of using the rock chestnuts to "woo the youth market." Pardon me, but does this guy really think that kids who listen to current pop music are going to embrace a production because its soundtrack includes "Taking Care of Business" and "The Boys are Back in Town?" Give me a break. The paying audience at the sneak I attended Saturday were mostly couples ranging from adult to late middle age.
The frills in "A Knight's Tale" may be from left field, but the story is strictly (in fact, overly) traditional. William (Heath Ledger from "The Patriot") is squire to Sir Ector, a jousting legend who dies at the beginning of the film. Desperate for money, the young man convinces fellow squires Roland (Mark Addy) and Wat (Alan Tudyk) to assist him as he furtively dons the knight's armor to compete in his place. The facade is successful and William decides to work towards the world championships, despite the fact that peasants are not allowed to participate.
Luckily, the boys run into the one and only Geoff Chaucer (Paul Bettany) staggering naked down the dirt path. Years away from his Canterbury days, the unemployed writer and chronic gambler joins them and forges a fine set of identification papers. William becomes Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein of Gelderland, jouster extraordinaire, with Chaucer providing florid intro speeches that would make a WWF wrestler tear up with joy. A fiery blacksmith named Kate (Laura Fraser) soon joins the gang as they head from stadium to stadium, with rapturous crowds chanting Ulrich's name.
William is enraptured as well, by the beautiful, hauty Jocelyn (Shannyn Sossamon). While he tries to win the heart of the fair maiden, an enemy glowers from the sidelines. Sir Adhemar (Rufus Sewell from "Dark City") detests the young upstart and makes clear his intentions to retain his jousting title and to snatch Jocelyn while he is at it.
Helgeland brought his cast together in Prague a month before shooting began to practice jousting and get to know each other. The actors spent their days rehearsing and their nights drinking. By the end of their prep time they were thick as thieves and the results show up onscreen. The relaxed bond between the actors/characters makes the film work, even when the dialogue is weak. Mark Addy ("The Full Monty") and Alan Tudyk make a particularly likable team, with Addy bouncing caustic one-liners off Tudyk's chronic blustering. Paul Bettany is an absolute hoot as Chaucer, with Laura Fraser's down to earth performance anchoring the group.
The best segment in the film shows off the talents of the three lead players. A formal dance begins with harpsichord music and turns into a joyous contemporary romp set to David Bowie's "Golden Years." Heath Ledger is dashing and charismatic, with his unforced masculinity filling the screen. Newcomer Shannyn Sossamon projects erotic elegance as she puts her dance training to good use. The two serve as a delightful center to a magical scene. While they strut their stuff, Rufus Sewell does some remarkably subtle acting. Watch his face as he makes the transitions from arrogance to anger to confusion to sadness to defeat, all without a single word.
The playful, frothy moments of "A Knight's Tale" shine, while the latter part of the film suffers from an attack of mawkishness, finally turning into a medieval "Rocky." Brian Helgeland needs more discipline as a director. At two hours and eight minutes, his movie screams for editing. I'd have cut some of the jousting scenes, which are numbingly repetitive. I also would have rewritten the entire third act and deep-sixed the pathos. But the bottom line is that Helgeland's incongruous flourishes and top-notch ensemble cast save the film from its many, many problem areas.
© 2001 Ed Johnson-Ott
Inside a tin can: Heath Ledger stars in 'A Knight's Tale'
By Ed Johnson-Ott, NUVO Newsweekly
Heath Ledger is a movie star about to happen. Beyond mere good looks, he has that hard to describe but impossible to miss quality that makes him a real presence onscreen. Anyone who saw him as the cool outsider in "10 Things I Hate About You" or as Mel Gibson's eldest son in "The Patriot" understands. And the marketers at Columbia Pictures certainly know. His new film, "A Knight's Tale," is an adventure/romance set in medieval times, but instead of displaying images of jousting or swordplay, posters for the movie simply feature a close-up of the 21-year-old's face, with the tag line, "He will rock you."
So how does it feel to have a big summer flick riding on your shoulders? "The thought never enters your mind," said Ledger, nursing a bottle of water in a Beverly Hills hotel suite, "not while you're making the movie. I guess afterwards, when you see that [gestures to a reproduction of the poster], it is daunting. It's slightly intimidating. But I also know the process, I know the studio's process, how they market movies and how they're marketing this movie. It's your job and you feel like a product sometimes, and you are. The movie is a product and I'm a product of the movie. Their job was to try and create a style as fast as they could to sell the movie. It can piss you off but it's also out of your control to a certain degree, so you just have to relax with it."
In person, Heath Ledger seems anything but a hot Hollywood property. Sitting at the table in casual clothes with mussed up hair, he comes off as refreshingly average, younger looking than on film and quite unguarded. Over the years I've talked with a numbing stream of sprayed, moussed and gelled 20something actors whose every word sounded programmed. This is a nice change of pace.
Writer/director Brian Helgeland, whose screenplay for "L.A. Confidential" won an Academy Award, did not have Ledger in mind when he wrote his story, which playfully mixes elements from other time periods into its 14th century setting. "The character had to be able to sword fight and joust and ride and sing and dance," said Helgeland. "And he had to have a very self-possessed quality. Heath's name came up he was shooting "The Patriot" at the time and I asked 'What's he done?' I hadn't seen "10 Things" and then they said he starred in the short-lived TV series "Roar," which was kind of a cheesy "Xena" type adventure show. I had seen it a couple of times, just switching channels, and I remembered him from that. I remember thinking 'What an awful show, but he was really good, whoever this guy is.'"
A meeting was set up at LAX, as Ledger was preparing to fly home to Australia. The two chatted for a bit, with Ledger saying he liked the script, then Helgeland asked about the long tube the actor had at his side. It was a didjeridoo, the droning instrument popularized domestically as part of the theme song and score for "Survivor: The Australian Outback." Ledger hauled it out and played it for the filmmaker, who was delighted. "I liked him and I thought 'Who else could it be but this guy?'" Helgeland explained. "I got him to agree to play it in the movie. He went off and we made a deal."
But when filming began, Ledger stalled every time the didjeridoo was mentioned. During the last week of shooting, Helgeland pressed for an explanation and finally got one. "He told me he'd been thinking about it and said, 'I don't want to play it. It's an Aboriginal instrument and I'm afraid that if it appears in a medieval movie people will think it's a European instrument.' This hadn't crossed my mind at all. I don't know how to articulate it, I just thought 'This is not your average 21-year-old.' He has a chance to impress everybody, but instead he thought about it that thoroughly. It was, well, it was a beautiful thing." Asked about the incident, Ledger, who has played the instrument for six years, said it was a simple matter of respect for the Aboriginal people.
Ledger was as attracted to the story as Helgeland was to him. "It was like, c'mon, I couldn't believe it. It was a smorgasbord of everything. It was funny and sad and had all that action it had a rich heartbeat that went throughout the movie, which I really loved. And then just meeting Brian and being on the same page. Sitting down and realizing we had the same views of the movie. And he was a lovely, lovely guy. I just wanted to work with him."
Before shooting started, the cast, which includes veteran performers like "The Full Monty's" Mark Addy and newcomers like Shannyn Sossamon, assembled at the location site in Prague for a month of rehearsals. The cast dutifully practiced during the day, but spent most of their evenings consuming a great deal of alcohol. "There was about three weeks of drinking," said Ledger with a rakish grin. "The rest of the time was horse riding and punching and swordplay; that sort of thing. Between the work and the drinking, we bonded as a group. I think all the fun and the friendship translates to the finished film."
For Ledger, the camaraderie was the best part of the experience and wearing a suit of armor the worst. "You feel like the inside of a tin can. It's very hot and very heavy. And it was kind of painful because when you're riding a horse the armor bounces up and down on you." He enjoyed his steed, though. "My horse Barney was so well trained. You walk him over and show him the mark, then you go back and, when the time comes, he goes right to it."
Unlike many young actors, Ledger avoided getting caught in teen movie hell. After doing just one high school romantic comedy, he moved to a pivotal supporting role in the prestigious Mel Gibson production and then on to a starring role of his own. He claims not to have a formal career plan, but agrees that he is selective. "My plan then was not to make another teen movie, not to get caught in that. It's very easy, I think, to fall into that trap. But I have to be selective. I'm stubborn like that. I'm not happy unless I'm doing something I genuinely like. That's reflected in the roles I pick. And I have to be scared; I have to be worried going into it. I don't like it to be too easy. It has to test you. I like to set hurtles in front of myself. That keeps it exciting."
His next film is another historical piece, "Four Feathers," where he stars opposite Kate Hudson and Wes Bentley. Ledger has an affinity for period movies, stating, "I guess the thing that interests me is the characters from a hundred, 200 years ago. Emotions have evolved since then, as well as the way we communicate, so you really have to go back and get an understanding of where we came from and how we got to this place now. It's curious sometimes there's a fine line between our job and being a shrink. Because you have to get in there and dig."
Ledger scoffed at a story referring to him as an old soul in a young body. "I'm a kid," he laughed, "I'm a total kid. I mean, you have to wizen up a little bit professionally. I have to come in here and talk about myself and go on about the movie, but inside I'm a 6-year old kid. In some way that will never change and I think that's important. You have to hold onto that."
© 2001 Ed Johnson-Ott
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