Ridley Scott’s Gladiator is stirring, bloody entertainment, held together by Russell Crowe’s conviction. The politics can be blunt and the fighting occasionally hard to follow, but there is someone worth caring about beneath the armour.
Ridley Scott’s Gladiator tells a familiar revenge story with enough conviction to make it rousing. The Roman setting offers plenty to look at, but Scott understands that an arena full of people means little until we care about one of the men inside it. Russell Crowe gives him that man in Maximus, a fighter whose reluctance to perform is itself compelling to watch. We know the broad shape of this sort of story, and the film gains force by taking it seriously rather than apologising for it.
Crowe’s great strength here is how little he appears to be asking for our sympathy. There is weight in his stillness, and his physical authority makes the fighting credible without making Maximus seem untouched by it. We were moved more than we expected by the weariness Crowe gives Maximus; he makes the effort of continuing feel costly. The revenge story needs that exhaustion, because determination on its own would leave us with a much less interesting hero.
Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus is an excellent opponent for him: needy, uneasy and dangerous in ways that strength cannot quite answer. Phoenix lets us see the insecurity without inviting us to forgive the cruelty, and his scenes give the political plotting its sharpest interest. Connie Nielsen, as Lucilla, brings welcome watchfulness to material that sometimes asks people to announce what they represent. Oliver Reed’s Proximo has a bluntness that helps keep the film from becoming too solemn. The cast can make an exchange worth following even when the writing has already told us where our sympathies belong.
Arthur Max’s production design makes the arena feel large enough to swallow the people put inside it. That matters more than the sheer quantity of Rome on display: the surroundings help explain why a fighter might feel powerless. John Mathieson’s cinematography brings the violence close enough to be unpleasant, although the images sometimes make the combat difficult to read. Pietro Scalia’s cutting keeps it urgent but does not always let us establish where one fighter stands in relation to another. We could use a little less haste in exchanges that already have plenty of force.
The music by Hans Zimmer, Lisa Gerrard and Djivan Gasparyan presses hard on the sorrow as well as the excitement. It works because Crowe makes those feelings credible, though the insistence can become unnecessary when his face has already done the work. The screenplay by David Franzoni, John Logan and William Nicholson is similarly inclined to underline things. Its talk of power and honour gives the revenge a wider purpose, but too often the political exchanges have an obvious good side and bad side. Phoenix and Nielsen make those conversations more interesting than the writing warrants.
As a Roman adventure, the film is comfortable with broad villains, stern declarations and violence presented as public pleasure. There is some wit in the spectacle, and some unease in enjoying it, but Scott does not stop proceedings to explain the contradiction. Its talk about empire rarely gets beyond familiar complaints about corrupt men and obedient crowds. That limitation matters less whenever Crowe is allowed to hold our attention without another speech explaining the stakes.
At 155 minutes, Gladiator asks for a proper stretch of the evening, and its solemnity will not suit every mood. It helps to have an appetite for characters who speak about honour without a trace of embarrassment. If that sounds like work, leave it for another night; if it sounds like a relief, settle in.
