A masterpiece that reaches back 1800 years to become ahead of its time!

Rating: 10/10 (6 May 2000)

An evil leader who acquires power by lies and brutality. An evil man who despite the efforts of many good men continues to prevail. An evil man who wants to remove all the remaining traces of the republic. An evil man who wants to be loved by the people but is twisted and perverted . An evil man whose sole talent is knowing how to play to the mob. It is so close to the current situation in Washington that I'm surprised this movie was even made.
The beginning of the end of Rome started when Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army and turned Rome from a republic to a dictatorship. A similar point was reached recently when a corrupt and cowardly senate declared that a president in effect was above the law. Abuse of power was free to flow from that point and the life of Rome slowly flowed away with it.
This movie if anything embodies the hope that men of good character can still overcome a juggernaut of evil and turn the tide. To say that this movie provokes no thought or that the ending was a letdown only shows that they did not understand the greater significance of this movie. How it speaks to our own time and offers hope and inspiration to those few good men still remaining. That in this dark hour, when stock options act like bread and circuses to mask the accumulating corrupt concentration of power to one evil man, that character still DOES count and that good men with strength and honor can still prevail.