When In Rome...

Rating: 9/10 (12 May 2000)

The tag line for this film is `A Hero Will Rise.' Ain't that the truth. Make no mistake, Dreamworks' promotion for Gladiator has the principle purpose of launching this guy to the top of the Hollywood A-list. `Can we get Russell Crowe?' will soon be the number one question asked in production offices across Tinseltown. Looks like filmmakers have finally found a performer who is the Real Deal as it were. I mean, the intensity of his performances evoke true toughness: you feel like you'd trust the guy with your life. Can you now or could you ever say that about Costner? Cage? Keanu? Arnold? Crowe is here to stay and puts the hero back into movie heroics.
His new film is another good story in the vein of "Braveheart"-not a bad blueprint to follow. The reservations I have about "Gladiator" all come from the familiarity of some of the scenes. The whole hero of the people' thing it's got going; the retelling of the ages-old story of the struggle against totalitarianism. Here is another one, a good one, set in a time and place we haven't seen depicted in cinema for quite some time. The film uses its height-of-the-Roman Empire setting well and delivers on the promise of action and adventure. Set in the last days of the good Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris), the film takes on the familiar subject of a World Power worrying a little too much about its neighbors and not tending to its own growing problems at home.
In the opening scene, Marcus watches his powerful Roman army, led by his general and respected friend Maximus (Crowe), tear into a rebelling army of Germanic barbarians. This opening scene is a huge, loud, impressive spectacle that the movie never really tops. The Emperor would like to pass along rule of the Empire to Maximus, which comes as disturbing news to Marcus' disgraceful son, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). Commodus sees to it that his father's dying wish is not carried out, and promptly orders Maximus executed. From here on, bad things happen to Maximus and to Rome, with the evil nervous wreck Commodus behind it all.
Maximus, thought dead by the new Emperor, is sold into slavery and trained to fight in the gladiator' games, the entertainment choice of the times until they were abolished by Marcus Aurelius. Commodus, however, brings the games back. In the past, gladiators who could win over the crowds in the Colosseum would earn their freedom. Maximus has something else to fight for-revenge. Director Ridley Scott ("Alien," "Blade Runner," "Thelma and Louise," "G.I. Jane") stages the arena scenes with pure entertainment in mind, just as the real things were. The whole idea of the games was to re-enact in a way, great wars fought and won by Rome. So here is Maximus, as a gladiator, pretending to be a soldier in an army he had likely conquered as a general in real life. This is when Maximus' character really gets under our skin. A lesser person might wallow in the obvious humiliation of his situation, but Maximus doesn't. He finds every opportunity to use it for the benefit of himself and his estranged countrymen. The story is so strong that these arena scenes become simply pieces of the whole that help to propel things forward. Scott never succumbs to the temptation of showing any more brutality than is necessary.
Joaquin Phoenix creates a truly loathsome human being in Commodus. This is the kind of twitchy, insecure kid a father would keep his daughter miles away from and here he is in charge of the world's greatest empire. The casting of Phoenix; along with Connie Nielsen, Richard Harris, Derek Jacobi, Djimon Hounsou, Oliver Reed, and of course Crowe, shows that Gladiator's creators preferred substance over style.
The casting, the photography, the writing-all of these things seem to have been given great care. The result is what will probably end up being one of the year's best films.
Grade: B