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Gladiator
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The mathematics behind Gladiator's comic book movie heroism is blatantly simple. Take one man. Put a sword in his hands. Then stand aside and watch the bloodletting. That's the benefit of telling an old-fashioned revenge tale. They're so matter-of-fact.
Flaming arrows fill the sky. Catapults beat back the advancing barbarians and their wooden staves. But it's the slicing sound of metal swords ripping through flesh that makes the heaviest impact of Maximus' Germania campaign. Blood and mud mix together to form a brutal battle. The carnage is mostly audible. You literally hear the cries of death. When Maximus rides his steed through a wall of fire, it's clear that victory lies with the Romans.
Russell Crowe grabs hold of Gladiator's popcorn matinee hero with a searing intensity. It helps that Maximus, a Roman general who's forced into slavery, offers Crowe plenty of opportunity for bravado. Trained as a gladiator, Maximus is a bruised and sweaty variation on the Errol Flynn swashbuckler.
Maximus' only desire is to return to his family after leading the Roman army to victory in Germania. But the dying emperor, Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris), wants Maximus to assume his mantle of power. It's a decision that throws the Emperor's son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) into a jealous rage. Maximus is caught off guard by Commodus' treachery. But vengeance arrives for Maximus via his newfound fame as a gladiator.
Director Ridley Scott's rousing update on the blood-and-sandals epic is already inviting comparisons to Braveheart, Mel Gibson's three-hour-plus Scottish actioner about William Wallace, and Stanley Kubrick's slave-revolt spectacle Spartacus. All three films take place in the past. They also center on men with swords. But it's Crowe's intense performance that allows Gladiator to become a distinct film unto itself. Even when surrounded by a digitized re-creation of the Coliseum, Crowe remains Gladiator's true star.
Maximus reaches down to the arena floor and picks up a handful of dirt. It's a simple gesture. Something he will do before every gladiator battle. He will soon feed off the power of an admiring crowd. He will use his skills as a Roman general to give the people what they want: bloody spectacle.
An epic movie needs an epic-sized hero to be successful. The emotional void left by Kevin Costner's futuristic drifter in The Postman supports this cinematic truth.
Maximus is a nostalgic movie hero akin to Old West cowboys such as Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Clayton Moore's Lone Ranger. He is honest, brave and caring. In a climactic Coliseum battle that rivals an OK Corral showdown, Maximus flaunts his moral courage. Basically, Maximus is a man of principled violence.
Crowe is too despondent and self-loathing to be mistaken for an Errol Flynn wannabe. There is not a single trace of self-mockery in his brutish carnage. Still, Gladiator pulls the heartstrings nonetheless. It's what happens when you emotionally connect with a movie hero. Simply told adventures like Gladiator make the type of movie that creates the next generation of movie buffs. Basically, teen-age boys will leave the theater wanting to be like Maximus.
A team of chariots surrounds Maximus and his team of slave-warriors. The Coliseum offers dangers and traps equal to its massive audience. The body count increases. The battles turn bloodier. Maximus is changing into a cold-hearted killer.
"I will give the people of Rome a vision," Maximus tells his trainer. "I will give the people the greatest vision of their lives."
Crowe was always an intense leading man: L.A. Confidential's hard-boiled LAPD Detective Bud White, his Oscar-nominated performance as Brown & Williamson VP of research and development Jeffrey Wigand in The Insider and a neo-Nazi skinhead in the
Australian film Romper Stomper. His supporting roles were the highlight of pedestrian Hollywood fare like the cyber-thriller Virtuosity and the Sharon Stone western The Quick and the Dead. Crowe's early independent work -- Blood Oath, The Crossing and Proof -- is an eclectic collection of challenging films. The dramatic breadth of his performances is impressive. It's inevitable that Crowe's "the next Mel Gibson" label will be trotted out again. Yet it's clear he is an actor too adventurous with his roles to be so easily labeled.
It's astounding how Crowe is able to propel Gladiator's suspense and ground its circuslike storytelling with sheer brute force. His Maximus is a human whirlwind of fury and torment. There is hoopla surrounding Crowe's performance in Gladiator. It's par for an actor who generates more and more excitement with each new project. The only complaint regarding Crowe is that Scott doesn't offer him a richer character. Maximus is basically a stock movie hero, a chiseled jaw modeled after Charlton Heston, Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster. What the role lacks in complexity, Crowe makes up for with sheer intensity. It's as if you can feel the heat of his piercing stare. Whenever he creases his brow, a ripple of excitement rolls from the screen.
Tigers leap from hidden pits beneath the Coliseum surface. But Maximus remains focused on his towering opponent. Much to Commodus' dismay, Maximus' fame has taken hold of Rome. The circus turns exceptionally bloody. At the end, it's Commodus who will determine the fate of the warriors. The Emperor's raised thumb commands mercy. Thumbs down equals death.
Like all movie epics, Gladiator fills its time with an ample supply of meandering subplots: the shifting loyalties of Commodus' sister Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), Maximus' friendship with an African gladiator (Djimon Hounsou), the political maneuvering of a Roman Senator (Derek Jacobi) and the redemption of an old gladiator trainer (the late Oliver Reed).
The film's best backstabbing, dramatic intrigue and emotional distress belongs to Phoenix's evil Commodus. He's a foppish baddie who attracts laughs with his whiny behavior. Epic heroes need larger-than-life adversaries. Phoenix's playful performance brings a burst of colorful villainy to Gladiator. Late into the film, however, it's Commodus' demented paranoia that takes center stage.
Its rich ensemble of supporting characters aside, Gladiator still keeps returning to its heroic lead. Over and over again, Scott points the camera at his digitized Coliseum in loving fashion. Thankfully, Maximus quickly pulls us back to his dark plot for revenge that is the core of Gladiator's story. We know that Gladiator's Rome is a city of manufactured illusion, no matter how stunning its vista might appear. Thankfully, the focus on Maximus never allows the film to lose sight of its human story.
A blood-and-sandals epic like Gladiator would be a strange film for Hollywood to make today if it wasn't such a homage to Lucas-like engineers and computer-generated oomph. Special effects extravaganzas are the modern-day equivalent of Cecil B. De Mille-style grandeur. It is remarkable when you think about it -- how a single computer keystroke can create an army of thousands. But Gladiator never feels like a cold exercise in computer effects. There is a warm-blooded, heroic heart at its core.
Movies make powerful history teachers, although Gladiator takes liberties with real-life people, places and events. Its gladiator hero is played by a New Zealander. Its Roman Emperor is brought to life by a young American. Like all costume adventures, Gladiator blurs the line between fact and fiction. Maximus' elaborate weaponry is way ahead of its time. Unlike past biblical era adventures, Gladiator keeps its Holy Year nostalgia trip surprisingly Christian free. Faith takes a back seat to bravery and sacrifice. Still, Gladiator's core truth lies in the fact that the "bread and circuses" really did take place in Ancient Rome.
Moviemaking loses something when it's a copy of a copy of a copy. So Gladiator arrives in the shadow of Braveheart and Spartacus, Ben Hur and Quo Vadis, an epic tradition that goes back to the silent days of D.W. Griffith's Intolerance. Gladiator saves itself from lopsided comparisons by standing on the merits of its own timeless hero. Even from the back row of the cinema, you can see Crowe's gladiator warrior's strong resemblance to Heston's Ben Hur. But Crowe's an original just the same.
CityBeat Grade: A.
