Product: Gladiator [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 5.0
Brilliant epic with top-notch performances.
Much has been made of the scale of the picture and of Russell Crowe's towering star turn. The kudos are well deserved. It's Ridley Scott's best film, as well as Crowe's most impressive performance.But what really sold the film for me was the star-making turn by Joaquin Phoenix, River's little brother. Taking what could have easily been a one-note, one-dimensional "villain", Phoenix absorbs the emperor in true pathos and mortality. His performance gives the film its emotional core, even though many would argue that that feat goes to Crowe. I believe that Scott's film is just as much about the emperor as it is the Gladiator.Props to an excellent production crew. Gladiator is, like Saving Private Ryan, a wonderfully renderred historical epic.