RICHARD III (1995) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge
Director: Richard Loncraine Adapters: Richard Loncraine and Ian McKellen (based on the play by William Shakespeare) Starring: Ian McKellen, Annette Benning, Jim Broadbent, Kristin Scott Thomas, Robert Downey Jr, Maggie Smith, John Wood, Nigel Hawthorne
In the first scene of this adaptation of Shakespeare's awesome play, a group of 30s soldiers are sitting in a room, when suddenly a huge tank crashes through the wall. All the unsuspecting soldiers are shot to death, and the apparent King is shot in the head by a man who pulls off his gas mask to reveal he's Richard of Gloucester (Ian McKellen), the protagonist who seeps evil. If you're going to do a film adaptation of a Shakespeare play, the best thing to do is make it interesting and original (much like Branagh). And surprisingly, the relocation of time and the inclusion of graphic darkly comic violence somehow works with the text.
I've always thought of "Richard III" to be not only my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, but also the most darkly comic. The lead is a selfish, deformed, and cunning villain who acts all kind to people when he wants to screw them over, then turns to the audience and winks, letting us in on his treachery. This film captures all the mood of the original play, and makes Richard of Gloucester into one of the great screen villains, wonderfully portrayed by the underrated Ian McKellen.
The back story is Richard, one of three brothers, is the black sheep, but helps his brother, the king (John Wood) ascend to the throne by killing the current king, all during the end of the War of the Roses. He then decides he will screw everyone over, even family, and takes several steps to eventually ascend to the throne. He enlists the aids of several people, uses them until they crack, then has them murdered off.
The twist to the story is that he is no longer in the War of the Roses, but rather in 30s England. The sets, art direction, and cinematography wonderfully show us the world of swing music, and cigarettes, and then we get a satirical view of it as Richard gradually seizes the country and turns into a kind of fictitious equivalent of Hitler. Of course, he burned a couple bridges on the way up, so he constantly has little problems with become bigger and bigger throughout the film.
The film ousts a lot of the dialogue (the play, if run with all the dialogue, would be rougly three and a half hours long), making it into a swift hour and forty-five minutes. Some characters are missing, and some are even combined to make one whole one. But the key to doing Shakespeare is not the little details, like the prophecies of Margaret, but rather whether or not we get the story and the theme, which this film does.
Ian McKellen, who also co-adapted this, actually does a better job than Lawrence Olivier did in his film, which played it much like the play (without Margaret), but lost a lot of the comedy and edge in the process. This film takes a lot of great risks and original ideas and puts the great poetry of Shakespeare in with it. Where else could you see the "Now is the Winter of our Discontent" speech done at first as a public speech to the King who he will soon try to have killed, and then head on into the bathroom to pee while reciting the speech? Where else could you see Lord Grey (Robert Downey Jr) be killed like a horny camper in one of the "Friday the 13th" flicks? Where could you see the depressed Lady Anne (Kristin Scott Thomas) injecting heroin into her thigh? And where else would you see the doomed Richard leap into a bunch of flames like James Cagney in "White Heat?"
The direction is fantastic. As I said, the film grasps the wonderful 30s (with a twist), but he does so much more. All the scenes are plotted out magnificently, with several scenes being embedded in the viewer's mind. A throwaway scene with Richard's first doomed brother (Nigel Hawthorne) where he discusses a prophetic dream he had is done in a creepy and, well, prophetic way. The ex-Queen's (Annette Benning) blessing to her doomed sons is moving, shot through a cage for the maximum effect. And the ending is wonderfully funny (with Richard's line "A Horse! A Horse! My Kingdom for a Horse!" standing out, as well as the chase scene).
But the film, as a whole, belongs to Ian McKellen. His Richard is the perfect villain: cunning, and likable, which works so much better since he's the protagonist. He cringes and barks to his characters, and occasionally acts sincere, then turns to the camera and lets us in on the joke. He holds off being a king, then accepts, and turns to the camera and hysterically says, "I'm not made of stone." And when he woos Anne sucessfully, even after killing her husband and father-in-law (which I guess is a good thing) in the first scene, he struts off acompanied to upbeat jazz music. He brings pure joy, energy, and life to a character that was written as a comically tragic role. I mean, it's tough to actually do a better job than Olivier, but McKellen pulls it off with his Richard role.
"Richard III" is a fantastic flick, filled with welcome life, and hysterically darkly comic humor. If you're going to do a deadly Shakespeare flick, make sure you have chain-smoking, graphic violence, and tanks.
MY RATING (out of 4): ***1/2
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