Director Report Card: Ridley Scott (2003)

14. Matchstick Men

By 2003, Ridley Scott had directed movies in a number of genres. Science-fiction, historical epics, action, fantasy, and horror were all well within his wheelhouse. One thing he definitely hadn't made was a comedy. In fact, the sometimes suffocating seriousness of films like "Gladiator" or "Black Hawk Down" suggested Scott didn't have much of a sense-of-humor at all. I suppose, after his last few films were such grim affairs, he wanted to lighten things up a little bit. "Matchstick Men" would see the director stepping outside his comfort zone to try something more fleet-footed and light-hearted. 

Roy Waller, along with his partner Frank Mercer, makes his living pulling petty cons on unsuspecting people. Mostly, he tricks old ladies into writing big checks by posing as salesman, contest runners, or IRS agents. Roy also has fairly severe OCD, which he barely keeps in-check with medication. After loosing his pills, he seeks out a shrink who encourages him to get back in-contact with an ex-wife, who was pregnant when she left him. This is when Roy discovers he has a 14-year-old daughter named Angela. She becomes part of his life, testing him and causing him to open up emotionally. Invigorated, Roy and Frank set out on their biggest con yet. 

"Matchstick Men" is based off a novel by Eric Garcia, who is best known for a series of novels about a detective who is also a dinosaur. If that didn't make it apparent, Garcia tends to write very quirky stories. That attitude extends into "Matchstick Men's" film version. Roy's tics and compulsions make him a non-standard protagonist. The dialogue is highly stylized. The film includes cute little touches, like Roy eating only tuna fish or hiding his money inside a dog-shaped bank. In fact, "Matchstick Men" fits pretty comfortably into a wave of indie-ish quirky comedies about family that were all the rage at the time. It predates movies like "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Juno" but feels akin to their style. Everything about this movie just screams early 2000s. 

That "Matchstick Men" is Ridley Scott's stab at the quirky indie comedy subgenre is very apparent in the film's visual direction. The film's opening credits have the scenes and names appearing in little boxes before sliding off-screen. The editing is fast-paced and comical. Hans Zimmer's score is jangly and fleet-footed, establishing the film's softly eccentric sense of humor. The cinematography and visuals continues in that stylized way. When an opened patio door triggers Roy's OCD, the film adopts his point-of-view, with searing colors and swirling audio. After being hit over the head, Roy's disorientation is depicted through similarly tilting visual. (Scott used this same trick in "Hannibal.") It's almost overbearing at times but it fits better here than in some of Scott's other films. Oh, and the slotted blinds in Roy's apartment allows for some of Scott's trademark lighting.

Definitely the quirkiest thing about "Matchstick Men" is its premise of a con artist with obsessive-compulsive disorder and Tourette's syndrome. That sounds like a TV show, doesn't it? ("Monk," which has a similar set-up, debuted the year before "Matchstick Men" hit theaters.) The movie is not an especially deep examination of these conditions. The obsessive thoughts that surely torment Roy, or the discomfort of dealing with uncontrollable tics, is not dwelled upon. Instead, the movie plays his rituals – opening doors three times or obsessing over his carpet fabrics – for humor. A scene where he has to confront his germphobia, by digging through some trash, is inevitable. The film ends with the mildly insulting idea that his disorders are entirely psychological and can be overcome strictly through a change in outlook. Though this does, at least, explain the unlikeliness of someone with uncontrollable compulsions being able to work as a con artist. 

"Matchstick Men" attempts to fuse this quirky comedy style with the con artist movie, a mini-genre with a distinct set of rules since at least "The Sting." We see this band of grifters set up schemes to bilk the unsuspecting out of their hard-earned cash. This involves elaborate disguises, false identities, and engineered distractions to do simple things like switch a pair of suitcases or get someone to write a check. It's nothing we haven't seen before but watching "Matchstick Men" go about its business is fairly entertaining. Watching the schemes come together, and wondering if the target is aware they're being ripped-off, is fun to watch.

Of course, the grifter genre has certain clichés and rules of its own. It's only a matter of time before one of the confidence games go horribly wrong. This occurs halfway through the second act, right on time, setting up a final third full of dramatic decisions. The biggest expectation of the con movie is that all the conmen are conning each other. This occurs as well, with a twist ending that you see coming from the film's earliest minutes. It's immediately apparent that the two storylines, of Roy's criminal day job and his reunion with his lost daughter, are connected. The minute the switcharoo goes down is obvious and leads to a climax lacking in surprise.

Yet this isn't such a big loss, because "Matchstick Men's" greatest joys have little to do with its routine storyline. As a movie about a thoroughly disaffected man forging a relationship with his unexpected daughter, which opens his heart back up, this is extremely charming. Angela breaks Roy out of his cycle, having him ordering pizza and getting out of his comfort zone. She's as observant about human behavior as he is, such as a scene where she convinces him to let her join the con game by talking about her teenage romantic life. The quieter moments are sweet too, when Roy tries to comfort her when she's sad or how they patch things up following an argument. These characters are well realized enough that you get invested in their relationship. The movie has a lot of heart and that saves it. 

Scott and his team are smart enough to realize that emotional core is way more valuable than the twists and turns of the story. After the big reveal, the movie jumps ahead a year in time. Roy and Angela are reunited by chance, living totally different lives. It's such a quiet and understated ending, that makes it clear that the relationship the movie is built on was more real than the twist ending made you think. It's a kind of sweet, kind of sad conclusion that gives us a perfect sense of closure. Considering Roy and Angela's bond is what makes "Matchstick Men" work, returning to it in the final minutes is the best decision the film could've made. 

"Matchstick Men" is able to sell its dual attributes of eccentric and heartfelt largely thanks to its cast. Nicolas Cage was an ideal choice for Roy. Obviously, a leading man as serially unpredictable as Cage relishes the chance to play a character with so many quirks. A twitching eyelid, emotional outbursts, and wild hand gestures seem so second-nature to him, you can't help but imagine he's like that in real life. Cage's "mega-acting" is certainly well utilized for comedy here, such as when he yells unexpectedly about pissing blood. Yet Cage's special talent as an actor is to make such oversized characters seem like real people. Roy isn't defined by his tics and has a complex inner-life outside of them. You understand and relate to Roy's problems, as ridiculous as they can be, and it makes "Matchstick Men" very sincere.

It also helps that Cage has dynamite chemistry with Alison Lohman, as Angela. Though Lohman is so effervescently charming that I think she could've had chemistry with anyone, including a cardboard cutout. There's no denying that Lohman is absolutely adorable as Angela, with her bright eyes, shinning smile, and chubby cheeks. She's completely convincing as a high-spirited teenage girl, that is so much fun to be around, that you long to protect. Watching her embrace her dad's career is a blast. It's such an obvious star making turn that it makes her career never quite taking off, and her eventual retreat from the spotlight, all the more disappointing. 

If "Matchstick Men" hadn't starred Nic Cage, it probably would've starred Sam Rockwell, another actor who specializes in rooting oversized characters in real heart. Instead, "Matchstick Men" costars Rockwell. Rockwell pumps up the attitude as Frank, who equally encourages and teases his partner. His easy-going sarcasm is a good fit for the movie's tone and plays off of Cage nicely. Bruce McGill also appears as the tough guy Roy and Frank rip-off, which makes good use for the actor's talent for blustery intimidation. Also, watch out for a cameo from Beth Grant as an enthusiastic woman in a laundromat. 

"Matchstick Men" would not exactly signal a new chapter in Ridley Scott. Right afterwards, he was went back to his usual blood soaked style. The movie received positive reviews but didn't make much of an impact on the box office and was a no-show during award season. Despite probably being a minor work for the director, I've always liked "Matchstick Men." It's breezy, cute, and funny. It doesn't overcome the cliches of its script but manages to be charming even with those flaws. Maybe I'm just a sucker for Alison Lohman's smile and Nic Cage overacting. Either way, I have a good time whenever I watch the film. [Grade: B+]

Director Report Card: Ridley Scott (2001) - Part 2

13. Black Hawk Down

Ridley Scott kept making movies throughout the eighties and nineties, despite having a few flops along the way. He directed four films in both decades, a good track record for any working filmmaker. The dawn of the new millennium would trigger a new prolific era for the director. He made eight movies in the 2000s, seven in the 2010s, and is kicking off this decade with back-to-back new releases. The Oscars "Gladiator" won definitely had something to do with this but, mostly, I think Ridley just likes to keep going. This unflappable work ethic would really begin in 2001, where "Hannibal" was followed nine months later by "Black Hawk Down." 

In 1993, Somalia was torn apart by civil war. The U.N. would send in peacekeeping forces shortly afterwards. After Mohamed Farrah Aidid would seize control, his soldiers would begin to attack any remaining U.N. military. A task force of army rangers was deployed to capture Aidid. "Black Hawk Down" depicts this military incursion into Mogadishu, the seat of Aidid's power. Throughout the operation, two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, forcing sudden rescue missions and leading to the loss of nineteen American soldiers. 

After "Gladiator" seemed to directly counter the jingoism of "G.I. Jane," Scott swings hard back in that direction with "Black Hawk Down." The director has occasionally claimed the movie was meant to be anti-war but, beyond the brutality of the violence, there's little evidence of that. "Black Hawk Down" is a film all about glorifying soldiers. The bravery of the men in this situation is repeatedly mentioned. Never once does the movie question whether the U.S. had any business being in Somalia in the first place. The loss of life of Somalian citizens – supposedly around 1000 died – is never really addressed. Whatever Scott's intentions were, "Black Hawk Down" is a movie that clearly shows war as worth it, as something that needs to be done.

In-between "Gladiator" and "Hannibal," it seems Ridley Scott was growing increasingly fascinated with cinematic depictions of violence. In "Black Hawk Down," hundreds of people are gunned down and killed. Spurting bullet wounds and red mist appears often. At one point, after a direct hit with a rocket launcher, a Somalian enforcer explodes into body parts and bloody giblets right in the center of the frame. This kind of theatrical bloodshed fit "Gladiator's" operatic tone and "Hannibal's" Grand Guignol atmosphere but seems wholly inappropriate for a gritty, based-on-facts war story like this.

"Black Hawk Down's" violence is non-stop. Once the soldiers enter the war zone, the movie becomes an endless cacophony of bullets, explosions, crashes, yelling, and death. The sound design is punishing, the viewer's eardrums constantly being hammered by noise and destruction. (Despite this, the movie won the Oscar for Best Sound, suggesting the Academy awards the most, not necessarily the best, even back in 2002.) It becomes aurally deafening immediately and, shortly afterwards, you're left emotionally numb to it as well. It's hard to feel too thrilled by a rocket exploding something when the same thing happens, in the exact same way, roughly a dozen times throughout the movie. 

Throughout this endless destruction, few salient points emerge. Like I said, "Black Hawk Down" actually has very little to say about the situation in Somalia or the United States' role in it. Even though the Task Force is there ostensibly to bring peace to the country, we barely see how the normal Somalian citizen is affected by this war. Instead, only one true message actually formulates in the film: That, in the middle of a war zone, the only thing that really matters is protecting the man next to you. This fits with the similarly bro-y messages seen in "Gladiator" and "White Squall" but it's done with a lot less subtly here. "Black Hawk Down" ends with someone outright speaking this message to the audience. This moral does little to dissuade the notion that "Black Hawk Down" is pro-military propaganda. "War is terrible but the brotherhood of soldiers is awesome," the movie seems to be saying.

In the past, even Ridley Scott's dullest films were at least nice to look at. "Black Hawk Down" doesn't even offer that. Presumably in an attempt to be as gritty and intense as possible, the film commits to an incredibly unappealing visual style. The entire movie is shot through a greenish tint, lending the entire film a seasick feeling. It's unpleasant, which was probably the intention, but doesn't make the film any easier to get through. There aren't even many of the visual trademarks you associate with Scott. There's some stylized lighting but most of the movie looks pretty washed-out. The desert setting precludes any fog banks, though Scott attempts to substitute clouds of smoke and dust. 

Probably the biggest reason why all of “Black Hawk Down's” techniques are so uninvolving is because there's very little attempt made to distinguish its characters. As in “G.I. Jane,” the military attire and crew-cuts makes it difficult to tell everyone apart. The cast is also large, the 100 real people involved in the operation whittled down to a still considerable 39. Attempts are made to humanize some of these military men, usually by giving them a single defining trait. Ewan McGregor's John Grimes is obsessed with coffee. Tom Sizemore's Lieutenant Colonel McKnight is especially pragmatic. Tom Hardy's Twombly spends most of the movie partially deaf. One of the pilots has an Elvis fixation. Ultimately, these tactics only go so far.

Making it even harder to pick out the characters among the endless chaos is a script that often falls into war movie clichés. There are so many last stands and heroic sacrifices in the movie that they stop being impressive pretty much immediately. A dying soldier asks his friend to tell his wife he loved her. Another is assured he's going to make it right before he expires. There's some improvised battlefield surgery, which goes predictably wrong. The characters in the movie that probably come the closest to being protagonists both easily fit into cinematic stereotypes. Josh Hartnett's Staff Sergeant Eversmann is a bland everyman – that blandness emphasized by Hartnett's wooden acting – who wonders if the war is wroth it before realizing, at the end, that it absolutely is. Eric Bana's Sergeant Gibson, meanwhile, is a gung-ho traveling warrior who knows the battle is worthwhile if you protect your brother. This is all stuff we've seen before. 

“Black Hawk Down” would be met with some controversy upon release, most of which revolved around its inaccuracies in telling this true story. However, one notable complaint accused the movie of being racist. It's impossible not to notice that seemingly all but one of the heroic soldiers are white. (The sole black American has a very small role.) Meanwhile, all the Somali aggressors are very dark-skinned. The movie treats the Somalis as a horde of faceless aggressors. They might as well be zombies, with the way they swarm around the heroes. Each one is an attacker and they scoop up the dead soldiers, ripping their guns and armors away. The film never provides much of a counterpoint to the vicious, deadly Somali soldiers. The racial optics of all this is definitely sketchy. I doubt Ridley Scott and his team intentionally made a racist movie but they should've thought this one through a little more.

It's not just the uncomfortable racial politics that causes “Black Hawk Down” to be morally offensive. Inevitably, it's jingoism pairs with some completely unearned pretensions. In the last act of the movie, our heroes – who so bravely risked their lives for freedom or something – marched down a road out of the war zone. They spy a Somali father cradling a dead child in his arms. “Oh, look at the horrors of war!,” the movie seems to say after spending over two hours focused on unending, impersonal violence and Somalis getting blown away. It's really almost insulting, this half-ass attempt to acknowledge how senseless and destructive the combat was after an entire movie devoted to glorifying combat. 

As I said, it's hard to pick out too many of the performers in the film. Many of the characters are memorable only because I recognize the actors, like Jason Isaac and William Fichtner, playing them. Fichtner can't help but make his character kind of likable, because William Fichtner is excellent in everything. A lot of faces I should recognize that IMDb tells me are in the movie – Kim Coates, Ioan Gruffudd, Ewen Bremner, Orlando Bloom, Richard Tyson – I couldn't pick out because everyone fades into each other. Of the cast, McGregor is probably the best, as he manages to mine some humor out of his desire to get out of the office. Sizemore also brings some memorable bluster to his part.

“Black Hawk Down” was successful with audiences in 2001 and even more-so after expanding to a wide release in early 2002. Critical reception was generally favorable too, Scott eventually earning his third Best Director Oscar nomination. (In addition to its Best Sound win and Scott's nomination, the movie also won for it editing and was nominated for its cinematography.) This was shortly after 9/11. Even though not a one of them could tell you anything about the situation in Somalia, I can recall all my high school buddies mostly speaking of the movie in hushed and awed tones. “Black Hawk Down's” status as propaganda would be fulfilled when stories about it being shown to recruits before undergoing training was released to the media. Ultimately, the movie is ineffective due to its indistinct characters, excessive violence, and multiple story choices that make the viewer uncomfortable in all the wrong ways. [Grade: C-]

Director Report Card: Ridley Scott (2001) - Part 1

12. Hannibal

While filming “Gladiator,” super-producer Dino de Laurentiis offered Ridley Scott the chance to direct “Hannibal.” He initially turned the job down, mistaking it for a film about Hannibal the Conqueror and being disinterested in making another historical epic so soon. Scott was obviously unaware that Thomas Harris, after a decade of rabid fan demand, finally wrote a sequel to “Silence of the Lambs.” De Laurentiis purchased the film rights, for ten million dollars, the day Harris finished the book. The cannibalistic Dr. Lecter had become a beloved pop culture icon in the intervening decade and the public eagerly greeted the book. The material, however, repulsed Jonathan Demme and Jodie Foster, who declined offers to reprise their roles from “Lambs.” Only Anthony Hopkins would return and, in many people's eyes, he was the only one that mattered anyway. With Scott stepping into Demme's place, “Hannibal” would attempt to bring Harris' gruesome novel to the big screen.

Hannibal Lecter – cannibal, serial killer, genius – has remained a wanted fugitive for ten years. Clarice Starling has become a top-ranking FBI agent but, following a botched drug raid, is publicly disgraced. This is when Lecter, currently hiding out in Florence, writes her a letter. This also catches the attention of Mason Verger, a depraved millionaire who was left hideously deformed by Lecter. Verger is obsessed with capturing Hannibal and enacting an elaborate revenge against him. He begins to use Starling as a pawn in his plan to lure the notorious doctor out. Hannibal the Cannibal, of course, is not so easily manipulated. 

With “Silence of the Lambs,” Jonathan Demme and his team achieved the impossible: They made a grisly horror-thriller so effective, so classy, that the Academy was forced to give it five Oscars. With “Hannibal,” Thomas Harris wrote a follow-up so sprawling and macabre that some interpret it as a brutal rebuffing of the previous book's fan base. A plot involving a viciously disfigured child-molester, bloodthirsty hogs, and a man being fed his own brains proved far more challenging to adapt. The film ejects the book's more grotesque and far-fetched plot points. Such as Verger's bodybuilder lesbian sister, who murders him via cattle prod sodomy and forceful application of a moray eel, or Lecter's sudden mastery of hypnotism. Yet even after being cleaned up for cinema, “Hannibal” is still Grand Guignol at best. At worst, it's a sequel that tramples all over the respectability of the original. 

Maybe the most outrageous choice Harris made with “Hannibal” was to change the titular serial killer from a terrifying villain into something of an antihero. “Silence of the Lambs” already made Hannibal Lecter impossibly brilliant and unforgettably charismatic. The sequel practically gives him superpowers. He holds the very public position of an art teacher, yet still goes undetected for years. He's perpetually one step ahead of everyone who pursues him. He slashes an attacker in the face and sends him flying across the room. He causes a devoted guard dog to back down with only a placid glance. His status as a genius appreciator of the arts, fine culture, and gourmet dining is further emphasized. Lecter is no less of a cannibalistic killer than before but the film, and Harris' book, seems to respect and admire him.

The change in attitude towards Hannibal is most obvious in who he targets. Lecter's victims are, for the most part, not innocent by-standers. They are mostly bad guys who arguably deserve their bloody fates. Lecter's most sympathetic victim is an Italian police officer with financial problems who tries to claim the FBI's reward for Lecter for his own use. In order to make a cannibalistic serial killer seem charming in comparison, “Hannibal” creates a truly depraved rogues gallery for the villain to dispatch. This includes an FBI director so blatantly sexist, he can't go a single minute without degrading women or sexually harassing someone. Mason Verger, meanwhile, is exaggerated in his vileness. He's idle rich and inhumanely scarred and a remorseless child-molester and devises a comically brutal form of revenge against Hannibal. Making his opponents so ridiculously evil drawls further attention to Lecter's transformation from a frightening villain to a bizarre wish-fulfillment figure.

Ridley Scott, obviously aware of the excesses of this story, takes what was probably the best approach to this material. He essentially makes the film an extended act of gory camp. “Hannibal” is pretty aware of how ridiculous it is. Hannibal foreshadows Inspector Pazzi – descendant of the notorious Pazzi family of Florence – so heavily, that it becomes oddly funny. As a sarcastic nod towards its title character's unique culinary habits, the film dots references to eating all throughout the movie. Whether that be a hog-shaped fountain in Florence – also foreshadowing of those flesh-hungry pigs – or crude double entendres about “eating” a woman. The movie's bloodshed eventually gets so implausible that laughter is really the only appropriate response. 

Anthony Hopkins is really the main person who holds this excessive affair together. He clearly understands that “Hannibal” is a different sort of movie than “Silence of the Lambs.” To match the tone of cartoonish horror, Hopkins becomes a complete ham. He gleefully leans into Hannibal's – let's be honest – goofy American accent, exaggerating every word in that particular cadence. He grins like a shark who smells blood in the water throughout many of the film's scenes. He so clearly delights in playing everyone around him like a puppet, that the viewer can't help but smile along with the flesh-eating madman. Within this context, Hannibal's moments of animal-like rage even come off as calculated acts of manipulation. Hopkins is obviously having a ball playing such an unflappably brilliant adversary. 

Ridley Scott matches the script's outrageous content and the tone of camp with a lot of visual bombast. Some of this doesn't work, such as a sped-up shot of trees over a road or some ill-advised shaky-cam. Naturally, there's a lot of stylized lighting. Such as a blade of light shinning on Hannibal's face, as he subtly intimidates Pazzi. That man's death, a combined hanging/disemboweling, is similarly handsomely lit. Really, a guy dropping off a balcony and his guts spooling out should not look this pretty. That approach to violence continues throughout the whole film. A stab to the gut produces a fountain of blood. A head gloriously bursts when a man-eating pig seizes it with his massive maw. And that's not even mentioning the utter grotesqueness of the brain-eating sequence. Scott scores the majority of the film to opera, in case you didn't that out the larger-than-life quality of the bloodshed was all very intentional. 

You've noticed, throughout this review, I've barely mentioned Clarice. Another reason why Jonathan Demme and Jodie Foster turned down the sequel is both disliked how Harris' novel treated Starling. Indeed, Clarice undergoes an unexpected transformation in the sequel. Sometimes, she's treated like an action hero, getting involved in big shootouts and gunning down bad guys. Jodie Foster's Academy-winning take on the character was going to be hard to top. Julianne Moore, though a brilliant actress, is not up to the challenge. She imitates the West Virginian accent Foster perfected to an unconvincing degree. She's not believable in shoot-outs and seems largely tossed about by the material. 

Really, Moore's out-of-tune performance is hardly her fault. Despite her action hero status, most of the movie defines Clarice by her relationship with the male characters. She's nearly as obsessed with Hannibal as Hannibal is with her, spending most of the movie waiting for him to return. In the bloody climax, Hannibal even has to rescue Clarice. He hefts her up into his arms in what's either a knowing invocation of the classic Monster's Touch pose or a perverse romantic gesture. “Perverse romance” is obviously what was on Thomas Harris' mind. The literary “Hannibal” notoriously ended with Hannibal and Clarice falling in love, the feminist icon brainwashed into being the perfect girlfriend to Harris' overpowered supervillain. The movie ditches the book's romantic ending but Clarice and Hannibal's relationship – mutual respect laced with intense fear – still bends in a weirdly non-platonic direction that can't help but read as wrong-headed.

“Hannibal's” screenplay, which David Mamet did a pass on apparently, manages to cleave Harris' subplots down into a more focused whole. Yet the film still has to make some weird story choices. A large percentage of the movie's first hour is focused on Inspector Pazzi and his attempt to locate Lecter. It's very strange that the movie removes Clarice and even Hannibal from so much of its first half, focusing instead of Pazzi's financial problems and his attempts to locate the famous killer. Giancarlo Giannini is fine in the part, staying in-control while showing the clear desperation Pazzi has to pursue Lecter like this. The scene where Pazzi and Hannibal move a painting together is one of the sequel's few moments of genuine suspense, as we know Hannibal is obviously aware the cop knows who he is but we don't know when he'll strike. Yet it's still weird that the movie spends so much time on a character designed just to die. 

Matching Hopkins and most of the movie's creative choices is an equally over-the-top supporting cast. Gary Oldman is buried under some truly grotesque and life-like make-up as Verger. His face disguised and even going uncredited due to various reasons, Oldman is allowed to create a ghoulishly villainous character. A depraved predator who relishes in his own evilness, Verger's based-on-a-possibly-true-story disfiguring merely made his internal hideousness external. Oldman is clearly enjoying a chance to discard all actorly tact and create a beautifully vile antagonist. Ray Liotta, meanwhile, plays the ludicrously sexist FBI director as a horrible bonehead. He's so dumb that he genuinely seems like he can't help being so horrid. When Lecter feeds him his own brain, it makes his brainless behavior literal. Once again, Lecter is unambiguously evil but still reveals the truth through his butchery.

Much like its literary counterpart, “Hannibal” received a mixed reaction from critics. Some were able to vibe with the movie's campy, theatrical carnage. Others were annoyed that something so knowingly pulpy was presented as a follow-up to such a respected film. On the other hand, audiences – if you'll excuse the pun – ate it up. The movie grossed 375 million, which is a lot for such a blood-soaked motion picture. I recall it being an enormous hit with my middle school cafeteria buddies, who deemed the film's elaborate butchery “bitchin'” and “sick.” I'm too much of a fan of campy horror bullshit myself not to sort of love “Hannibal.” It's still kind of a mess but it knows exactly what kind of movie it is. Everyone involved was determined to make this ludicrous, sometimes insulting story as entertaining as possible. And they definitely succeeded to a certain degree. [Grade: B]

Director Report Card: Ridley Scott (2000)

11. Gladiator

Some of the greatest blockbusters of Hollywood's golden age were set in the days of Ancient Rome. "Ben-Hur" and "Spartacus" are but two epics involving gladiator matches and chariot races. Films like these proved so popular, especially internationally, that nearly the entire Italian movie industry pivoted to making sword-and-sandal movies for a few years. This influx of cheap peplum movies burned the public out and the genre was more-or-less dead for thirty-five years. That is until screenwriter David Franzoni pitched Dreamworks a script inspired by Narcissus, the wrestler who strangled Roman emperor Commodus to death. Ridley Scott would agree to direct, Russell Crowe would sign-on to star, and the script would be completely rewritten. The resulting film, "Gladiator," would become a blockbuster and win the Oscar for Best Picture. 

In 180 AD, Maximus Decimus Meridius leads the Roman army to victory in Germania. Afterwards, ailing emperor Marcus Aurelius decides Maximus will lead Rome after his death specifically to reestablish the Senate. When Commodus, Aurelius' unstable son, learns of this, he murders the emperor and orders Maximus – and his entire family – executed. He escapes but is soon captured by slavers. Sold to trainer Proximo, Maximus is forced to participate in gladiatorial combat. His strategic fighting style makes him immensely popular with the public. Maximus soon realizes that victory in the Colosseum could provide him a path, not just to freedom, but to revenge as well.

If "G.I. Jane" was strangely uncritical about military service, to the point of jingoism, "Gladiator" directly rebuffs this attitude. In the beginning, Maximus is a loyal soldier of Rome. When Marcus Aurelius suggests all of Rome's military campaigns were for naught, Maximus responds with anger. If the wars were meaningless, Maximus has fought for nothing. His men have died for nothing. Much like the protagonists of "The Duellists," Maximus has based a large chunk of his identity around his status as a soldier. And what does Maximus' years of glory and service get him? Betrayed by his country, left to die and his family – the only thing he cares about more than Rome – brutally murdered. "Gladiator" reveals a truth far harsher than "G.I. Jane:" That empires consider even the most successful soldier expendable. 

Ultimately, Maximus learns that victory on the battlefield and bloody glory is only temporary. Something else reverberates into eternity: Love, man. The only thing driving the suicidal Maximus for most of the film is the desire to avenge his wife and son's murders. Yet he soon forms a bond with his fellow gladiators, inspiring them to fight back for their freedom. "Gladiator" also repeatedly references the Elysian Fields, the Roman afterlife. Maximus' focus soon shifts from revenge to a desire to do what is right before being reunited in heaven with his family. Love for your family or the brotherhood you form with your friends drives us to be the best versions of ourselves. This has more value than loyalty to your country or army, the film concludes.

Even though "Gladiator" is a film about Ancient Rome, some of its ideas are timeless. Against his father's wish, Commodus has no interest in dismantling the role of the Roman Emperor. He makes moves to de-emphasize the Senate and make himself more powerful. While the emperor dismantles democracy, he keeps the people distracted with spectacle. He builds a massive Colosseum and puts on more and more elaborate gladiatorial matches, all while stealing away the people's powers and glorifying himself. The phrase “bread and circuses” has endured throughout the centuries for a reason. It was true in 180, it was true in 2000 when “Gladiator” came out, and it's certainly still true today.

Of course, the spectacle looses its point if it inspires the people to rise up against their oppressors. Invoking the working class themes seen throughout Ridley Scott's career, Maximus repeatedly expresses his desire to return home to his farm. He may be a great general but, at his core, he is a simple man with ordinary roots. Thrusts into the games, fighting to survive, he proves such an adapt butcher that the audiences love him. Maximus becomes bigger than the games, rising above his status as a tool of the state. Proving that one man can stand up to the emperor and effectively challenge it undermines all of Commodus' authoritarian politics. It's the same point made in “Rollerball” and many other similar films: That one, ordinary man really can make a difference and defeat the system. Yet “Gladiator” is pretty damn good at conveying this message.

As you dive deeper into Ridley Scott's career, you do start to notice that father issues are an occasional reoccurring trope in a few of his films. Following Roy Batty's rage at his creator and the boat load of daddy issues in “White Squall,” we have Commodus' simmering resentment towards his own dad. From the moment we meet them, the emperor Marcus Aurelius is so obviously disappointed in his boy. He sees all his clear and apparent flaws, realizing immediately that his son is not worthy of the role of emperor. Needless to say, Commodus is pretty upset by this. “Gladiator” exaggerates the idea of parental disappointment to operatic levels. No wonder he smothers his father to death, as he's so desperate for love and acceptance that a warm embrace turns into a tear-strewn act of murder. 

Of course, Commodus' problems extend beyond some resentment towards his dad. In fact, it seems his thirst for power, his desire to become beloved among the power and to bend the Roman Empire totally to his will, extends from his need to feel loved by an unavailable father. After all, he puts himself in the Coliseum from time to time, eager tp prove his worth to the public. This is just the most extreme exaggeration of his status as a petulant man-child, an overgrown boy ruled by petty emotions. Who is so self-adsorbed by his own problems that he looks at his sister with a lust that he can barely contain. This is the man who is going to destroy democracy, in order to make himself feel better about his myriad of personal problems and to protect his own power and privilege. That has some chilling parallels to recent American history, doesn't it?

It's not just the themes and ideas that are big and bold. Befitting a movie about the public display of violence, “Gladiator's” bloodshed is fittingly theatrical. The bright red plasma sprays through the air with the swing of every blade. One of “Gladiator's” most striking images is blood drooling from the golden mask of one of Maximus' opponents. The movie also seemingly delights in the sight of blades stabbing and cleaving through body parts. Heads are sliced off, spinning upwards. Limbs are cleaved away. An entire body is cut in two due to a runaway carriage wheel. If “Gladiator” didn't so perfectly engineer its world of operatic drama, this stuff would seem very over-the-top indeed. 

Of course, Ridley Scott knows how to shoot an action sequence. In its best moments, “Gladiator” is incredibly thrilling to watch. That battle with the archers on chariot is, indeed, highly compelling. However, other times, the action direction falls back on the shakier tactics we saw in “G.I. Jane.” It never becomes quite incoherent. Yet there's a bit too much jittery camera movement and hyper-active editing during Maximus' escape from execution or some of the gladiatorial fights. At one point, we even see a brief return of the rough zooms used in “Jane,” when Maximus and Juba turn a retiarius' trident against him. All I can figure is this was done in hopes of making “Gladiator's” action as urgent and immediate feeling as possible.

At the time, “Gladiator” was raked over the coals for its lack of historical accuracy. Obviously, Marcus Aurelius was not murdered by his own son and Commodus was not killed in the ring by a rebelling slave. The exact details of the clothing and architecture are all over the place too. Not that “Gladiator” was ever meant to taken as an exact replica of Roman history. The film uses then-groundbreaking CGI to create some of its sweeping vistas of the grand ancient city. This not only allows Ridley Scott to indulge his trademark of shoving as much detail into a frame as possible, it also makes the film's version of Rome feel as distinct as “Alien's” Nostromo or “Blade Runner's dystopian city. (Naturally, Scott works to include some dramatic lighting and shots of rolling fog, as he is wont to.) 

I've compared “Gladiator” to an opera about a hundred times in this review. This is true not just in its giant-sized ideas and themes, nor the bloody executions of them, but also in the margins of its story. There's more than a few scenes devoted to drama among the senators. (One is named Gracchus, only the most obvious nod towards “Spartacus.”) They comment on the growing unrest in Rome, most of which is strangely kept largely off-screen. We also learn that Commodus' sister and Maximus once had a love affair. It's heavily implied that Maximus is the father of her son. While its central story is compelling, these rambling subplots – further emphasized in a 171-minute cut, notably advertised as the “extended cut” and not a “director's cut” – do drag the film down a little bit.

By the time he made “Gladiator,” Russell Crowe was already an Academy Award-nominated actor. Yet this film would elevate him, however briefly, to the status of box office superstar. As Maximus, Crowe is playing exactly to type. He blusters and grumbles. He stares with great intensity. He spits larger-than-life monologues with absolute conviction. The scene where he barks his full name and states his purpose is the exact moment Crowe became an icon. Yet there is something deeper in those sad, soulful eyes of Crowe's. He's both a giant, rampaging bear of a man but also a sad puppy dog. I think only a part like this, that so perfectly suits Crowe's style, could have changed him from a well-respected character actor to a genuine movie star. 

Matching Crowe in intensity is Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus. Phoenix, a wide-established actor who was on his way to becoming a beloved performer, also has a specific type of role he excels in. That would be men with incredible neurosis, driven by these forces to act out in whatever way suits the film. Commodus is extremely neurotic, shaking apart in multiple scenes by his overwhelming emotions. Because Phoenix is so very good at turning this kind of character into incredible performances, Commodus emerges as a villain that is both totally despicable but oddly sympathetic too. 

Leading an accomplished supporting cast is Oliver Reed, in his final performance, as Proximo. Reed brings a surprising degree of complexity to the role of a mentor, who knows his glory days are behind them but hopes to recapture a bit of that feeling by training a new legend. The role also allows Reed a chance to dominate the screen with his particular brand of bombastic charm one last time. (The moment Reed is replaced with a digital double is not one of the film's better special effects.) Connie Nielsen, as Lucilla, bottles her emotions up inside until she absolutely can't, leading to a few cathartic outbursts. Djimon Hounsou is also memorable as Maximus' brother-in-arms, playing off Crowe's intensity with a quieter of charisma.

“Gladiator's” success at the Academy Awards, including its Best Picture win, would have a number of effects on Hollywood. Its success and popularity would lead to a new wave of sword-and-sandals media, with shows like “Rome” and “Spartacus” on television and movies like “Troy,” “Alexander,” “300” and a new “Clash of the Titans” in theaters. There was even thus far unsuccessful attempts to sequelize the movie, which included an insane draft from Nick Cave featuring an resurrected, immortal Maximus. Most pressingly to us, “Gladiator's” Oscar wins would renew Ridley Scott's auteur license once and for all. It's not a perfect motion picture – it's not even the best of the Oscar-nominated films that year – but it is an immensely satisfying movie full of big ideas executed in a fittingly impressive manner. [Grade: A-]

Director Report Card: Ridley Scott (1997)

10. G. I. Jane

By 1997, Ridley Scott's legacy as a director was probably secure. When you have “Alien,” “Blade Runner,” and “Thelma & Louise” on your resume, you're always going to garner a certain degree of respect. Yet I do suspect the director was hoping for a hit, after having two big flops in a row. His tenth movie, “G.I. Jane,” would seem to blatantly recall “Thelma & Louise,” which was his last successful movie at the time. Or maybe I'm getting it backwards. “G.I. Jane” was written by David Twohey, based on a story by Danielle Alexandra. (Her only feature film credit.) At the time, Demi Moore was a big star and produced the movie. Maybe she sought out Scott, based on his record with strong female characters? Regardless of how it came about, “G.I. Jane” would cause a minor stir in 1997.

Texas Senator Lillian DeHaven publicly criticizes the military for not being gender inclusive. This leads to a back room deal, where the Navy will agree to allow women to join under a test period. The first selected recruit is Jordan O'Neil, a topography analyst. O'Neil is accepted into the Navy SEAL program... But that doesn't mean she's accepted by the men around her. She faces constant harassment based on her gender, in addition to all the rigors and strain of extremely tough SEAL training. Most obviously, Command Master Chief Urgayle berates and abuses her in cruel ways. O'Neal – quickly dubbed “G.I. Jane” by the media, the minute they become aware of the program – becomes determined to prove her doubters wrong and survive the program. 

As I said, you can't ignore the feeling that “G.I. Jane” was a blatant attempt to recapture “Thelma & Louise's” success. Both movies deal with a lot of the same topics. O'Neal encounters the same culture of casual sexism that Thelma and Louise dealt with. She's criticized for being both too tough and not tough enough. She's patronized when she demands truly equal treatment. She's accused of being both a lesbian and a slut. She has to put up with rude comments about tampons and all the expected sexual harassment. Inevitably, she has to be threatened with sexual assault too. “G.I. Jane” even has its main character say the line “suck my dick,” an obvious callback to Scott's previous feminist film.

Yet “Thelma & Louise” was presenting these ideas in service of a larger theme: Namely, women everywhere have to put up with this shit on a daily basis. “G.I. Jane” is making a far more specific point about women in the military. Namely, that if women are to succeed in the military, they have to be twice as tough as the men and put up with a lot of specialized abuse... Is it just me or does that seem like an underwhelming moral? “G.I. Jane” never truly attacks the inherent sexism at work in hyper-macho areas like the military. It never questions if the brutality of military training is good or bad and what role gender might play in that environment. It seems to think “Yep, women can be just as tough – maybe tougher! – than dudes” is itself a powerful statement, instead of a basic fact of life anyone should be able to recognize. (Some people don't recognize this fact but... Why would people like that be watching this movie?)

The most interesting idea presented in the film is by far its most cynical. That, regardless of what happens to her once she's there, a woman Navy SEAL is going to be used as a political tool by both sides of the argument. Senator DeHaven specifically picks O'Neal for this mission because she's still traditionally feminine. She's not overly muscular or masculine-looking like the first two candidates. O'Neal's chances at success are less important to DeHaven than the message she'll help sell. The other half of the political system, meanwhile, deliberately plan to sabotage O'Neal to prove that women don't belong in the military. Neither end of the spectrum actually gives a shit about her as a person. They only care about how she can help their particular agendas.

We know Stanley Kubrick was an influence on Ridley Scott. If “G.I. Jane” reminds you of “Full Metal Jacket,” that probably isn't a mistake. Both movies chronicle the hellish process of military training. The SEAL trainees suffer sleep deprivation, freezing temperatures, and repeated grievous injuries. They are forced to do ridiculous shit like roll enormous fuel canisters up a hill or carry fully-loaded rafts over their head. One scene has the men eating food out of a garbage can. Oh yeah, they are also literally tortured. O'Neal is water-boarded in one scene and, later on, tied to a chair and physically beaten. Regular basic training is already designed to dehumanize a recruit. I guess since SEAL training is suppose to produce super-tough soldiers, they have to suffer specific brutalization to be especially hardened. Seems to me that focusing on the specialized shit SEALs do would be a better use of everyone's time. (Real life Navy SEALs, by the way, claim the movie horribly misrepresents SEAL training.) 

When Kubrick depicted military training as a horribly violent and humiliating experience for soldiers in “Full Metal Jacket,” it was in service of an obvious anti-war statement. It was a critical depiction. No shit. “G.I. Jane,” on the other hand, still basically operates as military propaganda. In the film's last act, the SEAL trainees are called into a war zone in Libya because no one else is near-by. They get to prove that the training was successful, that it prepared them to become powerful soldiers in the American war machine, O'Neal included. That's a weird fucking message to send, after the movie spends 100 minutes showing us how utterly terrible SEAL training is. Was the intended moral of this movie really “The SEAL program treats its recruits like absolute dog-shit but it makes them good soldiers, so it's all okay?” Does that make “G.I. Jane” more or less effective as propaganda? I genuinely can't tell. 

The baffling nature of the film's treatment of the training process is most obvious in the character of Master Chief Urgayle. Throughout the majority of the movie, he is an antagonist. He seems to repeatedly single O'Neil out for mistreatment. He refuses to listen to her questions. He is nothing but berating and terrible to her. This peaks during some sort of psychological training exercise, where men are fake-captured on a fake-mission and really tortured by their real commanding officers. This is when Urgayle seemingly attempts to rape O'Neil. She defeats him before he gets that far but it still marks him as an obviously monstrous human being who has no right to exert authority over anyone, least of all women... And then he's treated like a heroic mentor at the end, who helped O'Neil achieve her dream of becoming a real Navy SEAL. What the fuck? Did the last twenty minutes of this movie watch the previous 100 minutes of this movie? Apparently the script not only thinks brutal violence during training is okay if it makes good soldiers, it thinks attempted rape is too.

But let's move on from the movie's extremely confused, if not totally fucked-up, ethical center. I'm not the first person to observe that “G.I. Jane” feels like a Ridley Scott movie trying to be a Tony Scott movie. The film's story, of trainees being suddenly drafted to participate in a real war zone, even mirrors the plot structure of “Top Gun.” Ridley even copies some of his brother's visual cues, like the use of slow-motion during dramatic moments or hand-held style rough zooms. Though don't worry, there's still a shot of light passing through spinning fan blades into a darkened room. Ridley makes sure to include that during O'Neil underwear-clad training montage. 

The Tony-Scott-ification of Ridley Scott during “G.I. Jane” is most apparent – and most annoying – during that last act. During that last act battle sequence, the camera starts to jitter an inordinate amount of the time. When soldiers are firing their suped-up machine guns, the camera starts to dance back and forth in an extremely distracting way. The occasional rough zoom, in previous scenes, wasn't too bad as a visual exclamation point. Here, the trick is abused over and over again, creating a headache-inducing swirl of motion and violence. I guess this was an attempt to simulate the confusion of combat but Scott and his cinematographer, Hugh Johnson, mostly just succeeds in making an unfocused looking climax to the movie.

As I said, “G.I. Jane” was made around the peak of Demi Moore's box office power, which starting to decline after "Striptease." Moore, her voice gravellier than ever here, certainly turned herself into an imposing physical specimen. It's hard to believe the damsel of “Ghost” and Lieutenant O'Neil, with her shaved head and bulging biceps, are the same actress. As an performer, Moore is convincing too. You absolutely buy that she is this incredibly tough woman who will not back down from any challenge and will not surrender. The movie never quite sells the emotional stakes of the story but I'm blaming that on the half-baked screenplay, not on Moore.  She's perfectly funny and charming during the film's rare low-key moments.

Because it's a military movie, most of the supporting actors in “G.I. Jane” have the same shaved heads and bulky physical builds. This makes it difficult to tell anyone apart. Indeed, few of the other actors in the movie prove to be especially memorable or nuanced. However, you can at least count on Viggo Mortensen – at least during the “Prophecy” portion of his career – to create a memorable villain. Mortensen plays Master Chief Urgayle as a sadist who delights in tormenting his trainees. The sheer joy he shows when water-boarding O'Neil or punching her in the face is obvious. Once again, this makes the movie's eventual decision to treat him as a proper mentor extremely bizarre but that's not Viggo's fault. When playing a sweaty, over-the-top scumbag, Mortensen is entirely compelling.

I seem to recall “G.I. Jane” generating a decent amount of discussion in 1997, about feminism and what role women can play in the military. (I also recall a lot of people complaining about being sick of Moore, which is probably why the bottom-feeders at the Razzies gave her a Worst Actress “award” for this movie.) This might just be because my dad – a Navy veteran who liked to lie about being a SEAL, in order to puff up his ridiculously fragile ego – watched the movie frequently at one point. In truth, “G.I. Jane” was only a moderate box office success, winning its box office weekend but ultimately failing to out-gross its budget in the States. As a film, it's a confused mixture of well-intention, if misguided, feminism and totally misplaced jingoism. [Grade: C]

Director Report Card: Ridley Scott (1996)

9. White Squall

In 1994, Ridley Scott was hired to direct “The Hot Zone.” The proposed film was a thriller, based on the true story of an Ebola outbreak in a primate testing facility in Reston, Virginia. The film got pretty far into pre-production, with Robert Redford and Jodie Foster signing on to star. When “Outbreak” – a rival movie inspired by the same incident – began filming first, “Hot Zone” was abandoned. Eager to keep developing projects for his recently renamed company Scott Free Productions, and probably hoping to recover from the costly flop of “1492: Conquest of Paradise,” Scott immediately signed onto another film. “White Squall” was also inspired by a true story: The 1961 sinking of the schooner Albatross, which was fictionalized in the book “The Last Voyage of the Albatross.” You'd think Scott would want to stay away from boats after the Columbus movie but I guess you go were inspiration takes you.

In the early sixties, a group of teenage boys are shipped off by their parents to spend several months at sea. This is in hopes of toughening them up and making them more fully-formed men. Our narrator is sixteen year old Chuck. The boat is a schooner named the Albatross. The captain is Christopher Sheldon but the boys just call him Skipper. Under the stewardship of the tough-but-fair Skipper, the boys face challenges, form bonds, and learn about the world. Their greatest obstacle arrives when a white squall – a massive ocean storm without any proceeding dark clouds – sweeps over the boat.

In many ways, “White Squall” is a totally typical coming-of-age drama. Over the course of the film, the boys are tested. Many of them butts head but, while at sea, they grow closer to one another. Naturally, they learn more about each others' problems. One is practically illiterate, another is traumatized by the death of his older brother. They get their sea legs, after a lot of sea-sickness and vomiting. They toughen up and encounter death. Most of all, they grow from being boys to being men. “White Squall” is most beholden to films like “Dead Poets Society,” even including a climatic sequence where the boys stand up for their captain after his professionalism is put on trial. 

The big problem with “White Squall,” especially when compared to better movies like “Dead Poets Society,” is that none of the boys here are horribly distinct. Chuck, our de-facto protagonist, is as bland as can be. His narration is full of generic "inspirational drama" platitudes. Few of the young men have personalities more detailed than a single trait or two, some of them not even getting that. The guys also look similar, with dark hair and brawny young bodies, making it hard to tell them apart at times. As several Letterboxd users eagerly point out, the cast is as overwhelmingly white as the squall described in the title.

There's about six boys on the boat and it's frequently hard to tell them apart at times. Only two really stick out to any degree. Gil is the sensitive one. He has an intense fear of heights, leading to a moment where he pees his pants while forced to climb the rigging. This is because his beloved older brother fell to his death when Gil was young. We know all of this because he carries a photo of his deceased brother with him everywhere. The only other boy that is memorable is Frank, whose dad is a rich asshole. This causes him to act out in various ways, such as getting drunk and smashing some lamps. Or murdering an innocent dolphin with a harpoon gun and then refusing to put it out of its misery. You might notice that these actions make Frank memorable for all the wrong reason.

Frank obviously has some father issues. He's so tired of his dad telling him what to do that, when called away from the boat for a steak dinner, Frank ends up getting into a fist fight with his own father. Obviously, all the boys are eager to prove themselves, to define their own versions of masculinity apart from their families. Their Skipper, naturally, becomes a father figure to all of them. Considering Skipper yells a lot and is constantly pushing the boys out of their comfort zones, to the point of questionable abuse, you have to wonder if he's a quality role model for the boys or not. I guess he does preach about responsibility and self-respect. But I kind of doubt a hard-ass sailor is the right person to resolve a literal boat load of daddy issues. 

You might be wondering if “White Squall” taking place in the early sixties has any deeper purpose. (Outside of appealing to the boomer nostalgia that was commonplace in the nineties, that is.) The answer to that question is, as far as I can tell, not really. Aside from a few golden oldies on the soundtrack, there's really only one instance where the time period becomes relevant. That's when the Albatross drifts close to Cuban waters. Since this is not long before the Cuban Missile Crisis – which a radio speech from JFK helpfully informs us of – there's a tense encounter with Cubans boarding the boat and insisting to search for any possible refugees. Aside from that one, short scene, this movie could've been set in almost any decade in the last fifty years. 

Considering I can recall “White Squall” playing on the Disney Channel at least once in my youth – the film was co-produced by Disney subsidiary Hollywood Pictures – the movie surprised me in one regard: It's honest about how horny teenage boys are. The guys discuss their sex lives from the beginning, teasing Gil for still being a virgin. They visit a brothel while at port, which turns out to be an extended prank. Later, they encounter a group of Dutch school girls, who are very eager to get to know the boys. One of the guys successfully gets laid, after a girl stripes in front of him. This scene just narrowly avoids turning this PG-13 movie into an R-rated one, thanks to some careful camera placement. I definitely did not expect that. (I'm guessing that entire sequence got cut from the Disney Channel broadcast.)

There's a reason some stray horniness ends up being the most memorable thing about “White Squall.” This film feels distressingly generic for a Ridley Scott movie. Yeah, you can spot a few of the director's visual trademarks. The token rays of lights in a darkened room can be spotted at least once, when one of the guys walk through their quarters in the boat. Later, after arriving on a picturesque jungle island, we get some billowing clouds of white mist. That's definitely among the movie's most optically appealing moments. Otherwise, “White Squall” is not that visually distinctive. Long stretches of this film feel like just about anyone could have directed it, which is very discouraging indeed. 

At least the titular white squall is pretty cool. Occurring in the last third of the movie, it begins with a massive wall of white water rolling towards the ship. The wave floods the boat, tossing the boys head-over-heels, and eventually dunking the entire Albatross into the ocean. Forcing your actors to splash around in actual water, blowing and spraying everywhere, grants a feeling of genuine intensity to the sequence. It's also “White Squall” at its grimmest, as it quickly becomes apparent that some of the young sailors won't be rescued. Even if the rest of the movie feels like the filmmaker working at half-power, the storm proves that Ridley Scott still knows how to direct the hell out of an action scene.

Now let's look at “White Squall's” cast. Jeff Bridges plays Skipper, obviously the showiest part in the movie. Bridges plays Skipper in a very shout-y manner. He shouts at the boys when they disappointed him and he shouts when he's proud of them. Probably his best bit of acting is the aforementioned dolphin scene. If only because a character proving a point about responsibly by mercy-killing a large porpoise is hard to forget. Otherwise, Bridges jacks up the gruffness and largely forgets to include the lovable part of the “tough but lovable” mentor role. It's an unusually bland performance from an actor who is usually more colorful than this.

As I said, the younger cast members are not very memorable. I don't know if this is an example of a talented cast let down by an underwhelming script or a thin script paired with a mediocre cast. Scott Wolf is completely forgettable as Chuck. Jeremy Sisto plays Frank, the rich asshole, which at least plays the somewhat smug quality that Sisto inevitably brings to all of his roles. Ryan Phillippe does occasionally show a touching vulnerability as Gil. Otherwise, I doubt I could pick any of these actors out of a line-up. I know Balthazar Getty is in here somewhere but God help me if I could tell you which character he played.

“White Squall” would be another flop for Ridley Scott, grossing only ten million dollars against a 38 million dollar budget. I want to make some joke about nineties audiences not wanting anything to do with boat-related Ridley Scott movies but I'm going to chalk “White Squall's” failure up to it not being very good. That ship wreck scene is cool though. The weirdest thing about this movie is that its trailer would eventually become a meme among Q-Anon nut jobs, due to the trailer coincidentally featuring a few of the dubious movement's catchphrases. Because life in the 21st century is very strange indeed. By the way, “The Hot Zone” would eventually get made into a television mini-series in 2019, which Scott produced. I haven't seen it but, by all accounts, it's pretty good. [Grade: C]

Director Report Card: Ridley Scott (1992)

8. 1492: Conquest of Paradise

In the year 2021, Christopher Columbus is a controversial historical figure, to say the least. Due to a growing awareness of history, his supposed status as the man who discovered the Americas is widely debunked. Most pressingly, Columbus' role as a imperialist who enslaved native peoples is more commonly understood. The sanitized, kid-friendly “Columbus sailed the ocean blue” version of history has given way to the brutality of imperialism. The statues and holiday made to honor him have fallen out of favor for exactly this reason. Thirty years ago, however, people were still happy to celebrate Christopher Columbus as an icon of history. 1992 was the 500th anniversary of his voyage. A number of events commemorated this special date, including “1492: Conquest of Paradise,” a big budget motion picture directed by Ridley Scott. 

Christopher Columbus is living in a monastery when we meet him, his obsession with sailing westward to Asia getting him in trouble with the local monks. A connection with a shipowner and a banker gets Columbus an audience with Queen Isabella I. She agrees to fund his voyage, on the agreement he brings back gold. After a nine month voyage, with the crew nearly ready to revolt, Columbus makes landfall... Not in Asia but in the New World. The local tribes are friendly but only provide a small amount of gold for Columbus' return journey to Spain. This is enough for the queen to fund a second voyage. Upon returning to the New World, Columbus finds his colony in disarray and the crewmen he left behind dead. Yet more troubles face the explorers as he continues to colonize the island he has named San Salvador.

When reading “1492's” subtitle, the word you should emphasize is “conquest.” This interest in one culture subjugating another is established early on, when Columbus sees the Spaniards tearing down a star and moon from a Moorish mosque they recently captured. In an earlier scene, we see people being burned at the stake for the crime of witchcraft. While his first journey to the New World is fairly peaceful, the second one is full of bloodshed and conflict. There's bloody battles, dismemberment, and an extended sequence where mutineers are executed via garrote. “1492: Conquest of Paradise” is a surprisingly violent and brutal film at times. (Which makes it all the more confusing to read that the initial U.S. release of the movie was edited down to a PG-13.)

As presented in “1492,” Christopher Columbus is a man obsessed with his dreams of exploration. He's introduced in the film, arguing with a theologian about his desire to sail across the globe. His passions run so hotly that he even gets into a fist fight with monks at one point. Columbus, as depicted here, will go to any length to make his dream a reality. He has to convince a nearly mutinous crew that this journey is possible and has to, similarly, convince the royal court to fund a second journey. This is the path “1492” takes to humanize the historical figure, as a man completely consumed by his vision of making history. One of the film's best moments is its last one, when an older Columbus reflects back on the first time he caught a glimpse of the New World.

The exact motivation behind why Chris is so obsessed with discovery is harder to parse out. “1492” itself seems split on what kind of man Columbus was. At times, it attempts to depict him as a free-thinker. He demands that the nobility do the equal amount of work as the Indians. He's also suitably horrified when a native is punished by having his hand chopped off. He does not characterize the local tribe as savages. At the same time, Columbus says things in voice-over about how the natives are naturally aware of their inferiority to the white men. How it's his destiny to bring God and civilization to these uncultured people. The film definitely adds some irony to the latter statements, as the tribe's chief is very skeptical of Columbus and his men. The movie can't seem to decide if Columbus was a progressive cool dude or a deluded imperialist. 

If the idea of selling Columbus as an ahead-of-his-time egalitarian seems unlikely, it's not the strangest choice the movie makes. At times, “1492” becomes an action movie. There's an extended sequence where Columbus has to fight off attacking rival tribesmen or quell an attempted rebellion among his own men. Seeing a dignified historical figure swing a sword around and defend himself from attackers is surprising, to say the least. I'm not an expert in Columbus, so I don't know how much of this stuff has a basis in reality versus how much was invented to make the movie more action-packed. (At the very least, Wikipedia informs me the mutiny definitely happened.)

It's probably for the best that “1492” includes some swashbuckling in the second half of its 158 minute runtime. The intrigue among the royal court or the interpersonal drama within the crew are a bit dull. Watching Columbus' main rival in the Castilian court plot his undoing is not the most exciting thing in the world. The scenes devoted to Columbus' personal life, whether that be his relationship with his sons or a handful of moments with his mistress, are not all that compelling either. All of these subplots largely fade away as the movie's focus turns towards the expedition. We are thankfully spared any attempt to turn Christopher Columbus into a romantic leading man.

Once again, Ridley Scott ensures that you never forget who directed this movie. The earlier scenes are set within the cramped quarters of the monastery, the  sweltering interior of the ships, or the darkened inner chambers of the royal court. Naturally, these scenes provide Scott with lots of opportunity to have rays of light shining through walls and windows. Once the film arrives in the New World, you better get ready for some majestic, rolling clouds of mist. There's plenty of shots of distinctive white fog blowing through the jungle. There's no doubt that it's all very nice looking. Even at this point in his career, Ridley Scott knew how to make a historical epic look great. 

Which isn't to say some unusual choices weren't made during “1492: Conquest of Paradise's” production. During the raid by the other tribe, jaguar roars are played whenever the attackers leap into frame. That's distracting, to say the least. Columbus' colony is finally declared a failure when a hurricane levels the settlement. This sequence is a bit on the melodramatic side, as doors are blown off their hinges and a lightning bolt burns a large cross to the ground. Think you can pick up on the subtle visual symbolism in that moment? Moments like this represent the movie at its most overcooked. 

When Ridley Scott signed on to direct “1492: Conquest of Paradise,” he supposedly insists that Gerard Deparideu play the world famous explorer. The choice to cast a Frenchman as an Italian, leading a crew of Spaniards, is a little distracting. Deparideu makes no attempt to disguise his native accent and is, at times, even a little difficult to understand. Despite these issues, Deparideu's performance works more often than not. He's certainly talented at playing up Columbus' unbridled passion for his dream. Watching Deparideu sweat and shout about how much he wants to explore the world is entertaining, if nothing else.

Deparideu leads a cast full of notable names as well. Some of these feel like high-profile cameos, like Sigourney Weaver playing the Queen of Spain or Frank Langella as the banker Luis de Santangel. Both make the most of their limited screen time, with Langella getting some of the movie's best lines. Armand Assante, wearing some distinctive facial hair and a series of nice hats, plays the nobleman who hopes to undermine Columbus' journey. These are the dullest parts of the movie but Assante at least has fun hamming it up. Michael Wincott brings his gravelly-voiced charm to Moxica, the insurrectionist who acts the antagonist in the second half. The character is written as cartoonishly evil, which is a speed that Wincott excels at. I also couldn't help but notice a young Arnold Voosloo as his right-hand man. 

For a certain breed of film nerds, “1492: Conquest of Paradise” is probably most notable for Scott reuniting with his “Blade Runner” composer, Vangelis. The soundtrack here doesn't resemble the score for the beloved sci-fi film much. In fact, Vangelis' work here heavily resembles his most famous creation: The “Chariots of Fire” score. The electronic music features similar sounding melodies, pretty synthesizer piano notes bringing a proper amount of grandness and grace to images of the boats landing upon the beach. Vangelis' mostly distinguishes this score from his previous work by adding more tribal sounds, including drumming and some vocalization. It might be slightly derivative but it's not bad either. 

Ultimately, the most memorable thing about “1492: Conquest of Paradise” is the circumstance of its release. The film was released a few months after “Christopher Columbus: The Discovery,” the Salkinds' notorious flop about the same historical events. The earlier film's failure seemed to seal this movie's fate as well, as “1492” was also met with a critical and box office shrug. (There was also a German cartoon featuring musical numbers and talking bugs.) Perhaps the movie's greatest legacy is the full-scale recreations of Columbus' boats, which survive to this day as tourist attractions. Though remembered as a fiasco, “1492: Conquest of Paradise” is more uneven than anything else. An uncertain approach to its historical protagonist and too much royal intrigue holds back an otherwise intriguingly brutal film. [Grade: C+]