Superb in Every Way

Rating: 9/10 (5 June 2012)

When bringing before the public a play that is exactly 400 years old, originality is an important aspect to success. Moving the setting from the Roman Republic of 500 B.C. to present-day England-- though it still is called "Rome"--and depicting infantry combat in a built-up area using contemporary weapons and battle dress with frightening realism, this picture presents a little-known Shakespeare play in a novel way.
The producers had the good sense not to alter the language. Though drastically pared down--a twelve line speech often reduced to one--it is Shakespeare as the Bard wrote it.
The themes of the play are universal, transcending time: the fickleness of the mob, the jealousy and treachery of politicians, the mutual respect of men in the profession of arms even when they are adversaries, the conflicting pull of family loyalty.
There isn't a bad performance anywhere. Vanessa Redgrave in a series of masculine outfits has aged superbly and gives a bravura performance as the protagonist's mother. Ralph Fiennes, head shaved and scars on his face, makes a convincingly patrician Caius Martius, brave in war but unable to navigate the tricky currents of politics or win the love of the common people. He's also got that Shakespearian essential: a great voice.
Tall, rugged Scotsman Gerard Butler is completely convincing as his formidable enemy-- and some time comrade--the ruthless Aufidius. The supporting roles are also very competently acted with some unusual casting of a black South African as Martius' military superior and a woman as First Citizen, the voice of the plebeian class in the early Roman Republic.
But the highest tribute must go to Fiennes' astonishing competence as director. Battle scenes, interior scenes, crowd scenes, all are handled with the skill of a veteran cineaste such that the movie never drags, never slackens in pace from the opening food riot by the plebs which seems ripped from the headlines to the tragic and inevitable end.