A good piece of cinema, but a great movie

Rating: 9/10 (14 March 2003)

The only way, I have found, to completely objectively rate this movie, is to discriminate between it as a 'movie' and as a piece of 'cinema', the latter being the more arty, deep and ultimately pretentious films made only to further the world of cinema today rather than just to make money as the former.
As a movie, Gladiator is completely brilliant: the individual film-making sections work so well together to bring this epic tale to the big screen. There are flawless performances, excellent cinematography, and the art direction and costume design are perfect, both for film-lovers and for historical nit-pickers.
Ridley Scott's direction does well to bring to life the great tale of a Roman general turned gladiator-slave, Maximus Decimus Meridus (Russell Crowe) who defies and overthrows the wrongful and villainous emperor of Rome, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). The director manages to invoke exceptional performances from the entire cast and leaves us wanting more. One of the other most enjoyable parts of this movie is Hans Zimmer's score, moving in every scene and creating a mood matched by few movie scores. Personally I think Zimmer was ripped off at the 2000 Oscars.
Now for the spoilers. As a piece of cinema, Gladiator struggles. The central interaction between the two main protagonists is brilliantly done and the under-tone of each battle scene is well portrayed, that Maximus kills only when he is required to and that is enough for him to go on to the afterlife. However, the film itself is fundamentally inaccurate, historically speaking. History tells us that Commodus was a fine emperor, beloved by his people, far from the evil, plotting emperor we see Phoenix portraying here. Naturally, the screenwriter Franzoni, Logan and Nicholson decided to use artistic license and alter the lines of history in order to make a one-off, unconnected movie. But for this reason, the attempt to incorporate political ideas into this movie fails, as it tries to create a tale of a new, young emperor struggling to follow in the footsteps of his beloved older father, Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris). But neither the senate nor the real emperor Commodus would ever have had problems on this score. Hence, the 'movie' chooses to write its own rules in order to tell a story, under the pretence that is a historical epic.
Also, while not intending to say anything of a racist nature, the casting is slightly odd. Personally I have had a little trouble recently understanding the fact that the gladiator referred to as the 'Spaniard' is played by Russell Crowe who, in this movie, speaks in more of an Australian accent than any other type, while the Hispanic actor Phoenix portrays the Roman Emperor. This is not to say that both actors do not do a tremendous job in their roles, it is just that Phoenix does not, in the end, look much like Richard Harris' son and Connie Neilsen's brother. But overall I don't think it is important, for the simple fact that Phoenix pulls off one of the most amazing and empathetic performances ever to grace a movie screen. Personally I believe that in the past decade, there have been only two truly great villainous performances; Phoenix is one, the other, more recently, being Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York. As a sidetrack, Gangs of NY actually contained the similar ambiguous casting, with English-born Day-Lewis playing an American 'native', while Leonardo DiCaprio, born and raised in Hollywood, played the Irish settler.
Back to Gladiator, and Ridley Scott's direction being another element to diminish this as a piece of cinema. There is nothing wrong with Scott's direction, it is perfect. But it is cliched, the film is very Hollywood, set against an almost monochromatic ancient backdrop. While the art direction and so forth are all stunning, Scott uses them only as a background to the main tale which is nothing original. It is a little too hackneyed, I would say, to have the main protagonist, despite however many people he has killed, to be the dedicated family man who wants vengeance for the murder of his wife and son and so the character of Maximus does not quite work on that score. But that is the only problem; the battle sequences, both in the arena and in times of Roman conquest, are all impeccably directed and are, unlike some of my other comments, historically realistic as far as we can tell in this day and age. It is actually an accurate depiction of the way people fought during that time period.
And finally to mention the performances more in-depth, they are all flawless. Despite the visually odd casting as previously mentioned, Crowe and Phoenix are perfectly cast and perfectly directed to extract brilliant performances in two very difficult roles. While the stand-out for me is always Phoenix, the minor characters also play a very important role. Connie Neilsen produces what I think is her best performance to date as the frightened and virtuous Lucilla, Djimon Hounsou is great as Maximus' fellow gladiator, while Marcus Aurelius and Antonius Proximo provide two later roles for two great and esteemed careers of Richard Harris and Oliver Reed respectively. Having said this, I think that the most perfectly cast is Derek Jacobi as Senator Gracchus. When all is said and done, Jacobi contains far and away the most credibility of the minor characters, both visually and in terms of his performance. It is not an entirely difficult role to play but Jacobi achieves it to perfection.
Overall, Gladiator is outstanding viewing and what will become a classic for everybody to see. It is powerful, moving, tense and not overly violent and for these reasons it is extremely widely accessible. As a piece of 'cinema', four stars, as a movie, five.