Criminally Overrated; a Roman "Death Wish"

Rating: 6/10 (24 February 2001)

As I write this, I see upon my shelf of movies a true classic everyone should know; "The Raiders of the Lost Ark." It was the best Indiana Jones flick; escapism refined to its purest, most unadulterated form. I wish I had been old enough when it was released in 1983 to call it a stirring epic and one of the best movies of all time.
Was it those things? Certainly not. You know what you want to see in "Raiders," and that's Harrison Ford escape from impossible situations, stirring action sequences, and Nazis getting their just desserts. I know what I was looking for when I went to see "Gladiator," and that was testosterone-oozing killing machines lopping off arms and limbs in a plot not too intellectually stimulating where the the bad guy died and our hero won out. I saw that, and I give the movie a 6-7 as a result; professionally-done, cliche`d, brainless action and nothing more. It, too, was cheap (100 million dollar-cheap) escapism, so why is it the forerunner for Best Picture?
The Academy was duped when they saw this. There's nothing Best Picture-worthy about this film. Performances? No. Direction? No. Script? A thousand times no!
Russell Crowe for Best Actor? To his credit, he's suave and probably tough enough to grind Kirk Douglas from "Spartacus" into chum. He gives one of the best performances I've ever seen from someone who maintains the EXACT SAME facial expression and emotional state throughout 9/10 of the movie's running time. The real talent here was with Joaquin Phoenix, who transformed a character written as a whining infantile nuisance that wouldn't scare a goldfish into a truly creepy and threatening presense. He deserves a Best Supporting Actor nomination, but not for this. He gave an even better performance in "Quills."
Speaking of Philip Kaufman's masterpiece, "Quills" is one movie on a list I would have rather seen nominated for Best Picture of 2000 than "Diehard with Sandals." "Almost Famous," "American Psycho," "High Fidelity" and "You Can Count on Me" are only a few of the well-crafted pieces of cinematic glory we received in 2000 that were overlooked by the members of the Academy that would rather get soaked in au jus and thrown into a tiger's cage than ::gasp!:: NOMINATE A MOVIE THAT MADE LESS THAN 50 MILLION DOLLARS (Miramax films excluded)!!! I guess the actors in the preceding films should've used a monotone voice and screamed a few more times.
What really irks me, though, is the nerve of the Academy nominating "Gladiator's" overcooked, cliche`s-on-parade laden script. Holy Mother of Christ, movies like this aren't driven by a script. They're driven by studio executives throwing fistfulls of money to make something that will make you go "oooh" and "aaaah."
Movies are an art form, and with that, "Gladiator" is the equivalent of the sketch artist at the mall doing portraits for ten dollars each. The Picasso of the nominees is the challenging, explosive "Traffic," and the awe-inspiring "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (a movie with a hint of human connection and feeling; Ridley Scott, take note) is Salvador Dali. I plea to any Academy Member that might by chance be reading this: please, I beg of you, leave this along with the mediocre "Erin Brockovich" and the preach-fest "Chocolat" at the bottom of the heap, and let a movie made by people who know and care take home the gold.