Hearing of this change of plans, the enraged Commodus promptly strangles his father and orders Maximus' execution . Maximus manages to escape but is too late to save his family, which is brutally murdered. Sold into slavery, Maximus becomes a gladiator and fights his way back to Rome to face the man who destroyed his life. Enhanced by dramatic choreography and gutsy music video techniques, Scott makes brutality beautiful. Which is not to say that the fight scenes are any less bloody or visceral.
Blood flows, heads are sliced from shoulders.
Using his military skills, Maximus unites the gladiators to form an unstoppable killing machine capable of taking out spiked chariots, heavily armed archers and Amazons, and, if they existed at the time, probably a helicopter or two. And it's Maximus' sense of morality that keeps the film moving. When Marcus Aurelius wants to name Maximus as the Protector of Rome, it's because the elderly emperor is aware of Maximus' moral code, of his need to be true to the Roman people and to the dreams of a Republic . It is Crowe that forms the moral center of a film filled with opportunistic characters and treacherous politicians, and he does so with a quiet dignity that is seldom seen in modern dramas, much less summer action films. Unfortunately, Phoenix's performance as the upstart Commodus is nowhere near as solid.