A Comeback For the Ages

Rating: 10/10 (18 September 2002)

People love a comeback. They might just be our favorite storytelling archetypes and contain the most relatable and inspirational narrative tropes: vulnerability, failure, trial, redemption and eventual triumph. Gladiator is an epic comeback in more ways than one.
First, it is the story of a comeback: unfairly disgraced Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russel Crowe) is exiled by mad Emperor Commodus. Reduced to slavery, he earns his keep in the arena, and fights his way to the Colosseum in Rome, and to revenge. It is as streamlined as storytelling comes.
Then, it marks the comeback of director Ridley Scott after a series of flops and artistically underwhelming pictures. It also sees the return of a genre confined to the dustbin of cinematic history since the failure of the bloated Fall of the Roman Empire over three decades prior (which incidentally also told the story of a general fighting a redeeming battle against mad emperor Commodus). How odd that a studio might pick a director best known for science fiction to tell what is on paper essentially the same story as that famous flop?
Galvanized by techniques first deployed in Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, Scott chose to stick to a straightforward, almost very by-the-numbers script and immerse us in the arena. And immerse us he did. From the first shot to the last, Gladiator is a lean, mean, single-minded brute of a film, punctuated with quiet moments of tender beauty. The bloody fights in the arena eclipsed anything seen since, and the Rome depicted was intoxicatingly real, far removed from the stagy creations of old.
Serendipity was, as it so often is, essential to this film's success: original star Antonio Banderas - the main reason the screenplay alludes to our gladiator as "the Spaniard" - jumped ship, and paved the way for revelation du jour Russel Crowe, fresh from L.A. Confidential. While Banderas is a likable, charming lead, it is impossible to imagine anyone else but Crowe as Maximus: he fits the role and the story like a glove, hard as nails but also deeply wounded and at times even gentle. It earned Crowe not just an Academy Award but super-stardom. Luckily that was not enough to completely eclipse revealing turns from Djimon Hounsou and Joaquin Phoenix as the mad emperor, or first-rate work from departed veterans Richard Harris and Oliver Reed, the later particularly haunting as gladiator-trainer Proximo.
Throughout, Scott's visual mastery speaks for itself, and his seasoned collaborators all produced some of the best work in their respective careers, from set designer Arthur Max to composers Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard, whose epic score truly did echo in eternity as the ad campaign promised.
Gladiator is Hollywood at its best: old-fashioned storytelling executed in a vibrant and awe-inspiring way.