GLADIATOR

GLADIATOR (2000) ***

Reviewed 5/7/00

The sword and sandal epic had mostly gone the way of the musical and the western in American cinema. The musical died partly because movies could no longer convincingly present people bursting into song mid-plot, and also had been more or less supplanted by music videos. The western lost its luster when its manifest destiny mythologies were smashed in the late-60s and early-70s by films such as The Wild Bunch, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and Ulzana's Raid. Revisionist westerns like Dances With Wolves and Unforgiven made a comeback in the early 90s, but westerns remain a genre on life-support. Sword and sandal films suffer from a combination of these reasons. Sophistication of history and multiculturalism with their awareness of anthropomorphisms made these films increasingly ridiculous. Today's audience cannot help but note the awkward schism of having characters of ancient Rome speak with contemporary English colloquialisms. Even the pinnacles of this genre, Ben Hur and Spartacus, look dated with not that much separating them from their B-movie brethren other than production values. The remedy in presenting these things is to not even pretend to hide the silliness. The television shows Hercules and Xena embrace their anthropomorphisms, occasionally to very effective humor. So what if Hercules and Xena make deadpan Schwarzenegger jokes after vanquishing their enemies or get involved in beauty contests? Like good postmodernists, the writers are basically saying, yes, there is no way we're going to capture what ancient Greece was really like, so we're going to filter it through today's lens and the whole time, you're going to know you're watching it filtered through today's lens.

Now comes along Ridley Scott's $100 million-plus Gladiator, attempting a return to the old-fashioned sword-and-sandal pic. It contains a modicum of jokes, but is otherwise a completely self-serious picture, and it almost succeeds. It has a classic plot: Rome's greatest general is betrayed by the jealous heir to the Empire and his family is murdered; he escapes death only to be sold into slavery as a gladiator; working his way up through the gladiatorial ranks, he eventually gets to Rome to seek vengeance against the villain, now the Emperor. Russell Crowe plays Maximus, the gladiator/general. Joaquin Phoenix is the evil Emperor, Commodus. Both do terrific jobs in their respective roles and are matched in bit parts by English veterans Richard Harris, Derek Jacobi, and the late Oliver Reed. Scott's aptitude with long shots and close-ups and editor Pietro Scalia's revving up of the action sequences with extremely quick cutting highlight the stylization of Gladiator.

Between the acting and Scott's vivid direction, the film does a good job of hiding most of the pitfalls of the genre, but they are there. However, the most problematic element of the film is that it strives to be respectable. Scott is clearly not after simple tongue-and-cheek entertainment. He wants to move us with the power of myth. More than that, he even includes a little critiquing of contemporary culture by mirroring it with ancient Rome -- the "mobs" being more preoccupied with mindless entertainment than with politics and real world events; the questionable entertainment value of violence. Scott does not pull off either myth or critique. The film fails in the latter because the indulgent spectacle of the opening sequence, an enormous battle between the Romans and the Germanians, makes hypocritical any attempt to criticize violence. Mythical aspirations are dashed because the film can never transcend what it is, your run-of-the-mill genre piece, just incredibly jazzed up. What greatness there is in the film lies in the style, not in the content. The story is hindered by schmaltz or worn-out cliché. Maximus is at heart a farmer who just wants to go back to his wife, son, and the simple life (the recurring image of a hand passing through a wheat field as a metaphor for this desire is insipid). Commodus' sister's one-time love for Maximus turns out to still be burning. Maximus' primary motivation is vengeance for his family; secondary is the future of Roman society. Then there is the dialogue. Some of it could have come out of a B-movie, e.g., "My name is… Gladiator!"

The film will probably be quite financially successful owing to its distinctness in today's Hollywood and the promise of spectacle; however, for the reasons noted above, it is unlikely to revive this genre. All said and done, Gladiator is more than passing entertainment, but fails when striving for more. Unfortunately, it is striving for more.