Rousing entertainment with subtexts you can engage with, or not. .as you please

Rating: 8/10 (7 May 2000)

Gladiator is one of those rare films that does not depend on one single knock-em-dead effect or device. It's like a great meal you really enjoy without noticing one individual ingredient. Hence it's rather difficult to take it apart.
Firstly it's great entertainment. This is a film designed to entertain, something many studios and directors have forgotten how to do in search of the Great Message that will change the World. You could almost call it a 'people's film' just as Maximus becomes the people's hero.

The analogies in the film to modern life can be taken as far as you like without spoiling your enjoyment of the story and the spectacle you engage in. Entrepreneurs, the Olympics, sport-as-war, war-as-entertainment, public image creation, it's all there if you want to philosophise about modern spectacle.
But Gladiator is still a good story about a deprived hero setting out to Get Even with the usurper who knocked him down. It sounds hackneyed but Ridley Scott knows how to get your emotions really inside the story so you care about the characters.
It's really Russell Crowe's movie. He's so dominant and so bloody good. However he doesn't steal the film from other characters, which is another measure of a great actor. Joaquin Phoenix gives a very insightful interpretation of a man who just doesn't get it, who can't work out the secret of how to win love and how to be powerful where it matters most. He's not a stereotypical villain, but this does not detract from the film's impact, rather it enhances it.
The supporting cast are just as good and it's an eclectic blend of accents and styles but it works. Actually I found it refreshing to hear Australian, English, American and European all together - it made the film more universal.
The pacing of Gladiator is excellent. Despite the early fight scene I found my involvement built up slowly until I was hooked about half an hour in. The Germania battle I found distracting, only because I hate dropped frames and I don't think Scott does this as well as Spielberg did in Private Ryan. It's well-intentioned but I found it irritating.
Violence was controlled and in context and worked very well. This is after all a battle epic. The choice of film stock sometimes came to the fore a bit more than I liked - I felt it was overdone.
But on an emotional level this film worked beautifully for me. Like the Colosseum audience, I cheered for Maximus and booed for Commodus. It was fun. The ending was appropriate given all that Maximus had lost. I didn't feel cheated or deprived. I felt I saw what I came to see and got a bonus.

The subtexts you can take or leave as you wish. Gladiator doesn't force them down your neck. But if you want to engage at a philosophical as well as a visceral level, then you can. A rare achievement. Ole Scott, Ole Crowe. Ole Gladiator.