impressive spectacle (some minor spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (14 January 2001)

Hindsight is 20/20 - and in the world of movies that is as true of surprise box office successes as it is of unexpected box office failures. Ridley Scott's `Gladiator' struck such a deep chord with spectacle-starved audiences this past summer that one tends to forget that the project itself was anything but a sure bet in its initial planning stages and that the studios and filmmakers who produced it took quite a financial gamble in bringing it to the screen.
The good news is that `Gladiator' emerges as a respectable return to both a subject and a style of filmmaking long abandoned by Hollywood. Here is an epic tale filmed with the kind of sweep and scope not seen much since the passing of David Lean - though `Gladiator' doesn't even begin to approach in quality that director's greatest work. Still, this film offers any number of rewards even beyond its grand scale and epic vision. Although one doesn't naturally expect profound psychological insights from a film of this nature, `Gladiator' seems to be a bit more character-driven than most similar multimillion-dollar extravaganzas. Utilizing the same basic set of historical characters that were chronicled in the 1964 film `The Fall of the Roman Empire,' `Gladiator' manages to flesh out its principle figures in impressive and exciting ways. Richard Harris as the dying emperor Marcus Aurelius sets a very high bar at the outset of the film. Here is a man wearied by his many years spent spilling blood to keep his vast empire together who, as his death approaches, yearns to restore Rome to its basic philosophical roots as a peace-loving republic. Fearing that his amoral son Commodus will be constitutionally unable to fulfill this wish, Aurelius appoints his premiere general Maximus (Russell Crowe) as his successor. Commodus, when he is informed of this decision, does what every self-respecting candidate for Roman emperorship must do - he kills his father and orders the death of his nearest rival. But fate being what it is, Maximus is not quite ready at this point to bid a fond farewell to this mortal coil and he finds himself instead not only sold into slavery as a gladiator, but eventually earning a reputation as a crowd-pleasing fighter, his popularity far surpassing that of the emperor himself, much to the latter's eternal chagrin and frustration.
The most fascinating character from a psychological point of view turns out in fact to be Commodus, whose innate weaknesses and insecurities serve as the underpinnings for his immoral behavior and actions. Joaquin Phoenix does a superb job capturing the many facets of this complex character, seething with petty jealousies as he blazes a path to his own destruction and the destruction of the once glorious empire. Unfortunately, Maximus as the hero fails to rivet our attention in quite the same way. Though Crowe brings an impressive physicality to his role as a reluctant killer, the writers don't seem to be able to fully flesh out the character in the same way that they do Commodus. We sympathize with Maximus' plight, but his internal motives occasionally seem too conventionally sentimental, particularly with that tiresome standard plot device - of seeing his loved ones slaughtered - that seems to be practically a requirement for reluctant hero characters. Maximus is just never all that convincing as a central figure. The late Oliver Reed delivers a dynamite performance as the ex-gladiator turned promoter but his quality of wry cynicism is unfortunately undercut by a final character turnabout that is strictly cornball Hollywood. And it is nice to see Derek Jacobi donning a toga again after all these years since "I, Claudius." (Another strange phenomenon: why does the penultimate image of the film replicate almost exactly the final shot from `West Side Story'? I merely observe and ask).
Although it doesn't approach the subject directly, `Gladiator' does make oblique reference, in its basic imagery of the arena and the bloodthirsty audience contained therein, to the paradox inherent in a culture that prided itself on its `civilized temperament' while at the same time indulging itself in so clearly barbarous a form of entertainment. We are then struck by the fact that here we are in the beginning of the 21st Century finding our own adrenalin flowing at the very same sights - albeit with the comforting filter of make believe and fiction separating us from the ugly realities of the actual thing itself. Who can avoid noting the stunning similarity in tone and image between what we are seeing here and what we see when we sit down to watch a boxing match or the latest episode of WWF Smack Down? More than anything else, `Gladiator' becomes a bit of a mirror in which we see something of ourselves reflected (`Fight Club' did the same thing but in a more direct and intentional way). The excitement of the gladiatorial fight sequences only serves to draw us in and make us complicit in the very same brutality we find ourselves decrying intellectually. In many ways, Scott may be making a more profound comment than he realizes on a conscious level. For that aspect alone, `Gladiator' deserves to be seen.