Troy

Troy

(2004) Dir: Wolfgang Peterson

I watched Troy last night. I hadn’t watched it in over a decade so I was excited to return to Wolfgang Peterson’s attempt at recapturing the magic Ridley Scott and Mel Gibson brought to Gladiator and Braveheart. But unfortunately, I retain the same problems I originally had with it. It’s got some great spectacle and grand scale filmmaking. Gargantuan sets, armies or extras and stuntmen, scenes either lit by scorching sunshine or blazing fires, beautifully detailed costumes, etc etc. But the problem is that the film doesn’t know who it’s protagonist is. 

The film opens with Brad Pitt’s Achilles, and you presume he’s the lead. Pitt was the biggest star and it’s his face that was the centrepiece for a lot of the marketing. But then it’s Orlando Bloom’s Paris who instigates the whole plot by stealing Helen (thus also asserting them as the key romantic plot). But then after briefly flirting with the idea that Paris and Helen feel guilty over the war that’s going to be fought for them, but never really delving into those themes and emotions, Paris gets his ass beat and his brother, Eric Bana as Hector, asserts himself as the strong and noble hero of the story. Meanwhile, Achilles has just been slicing people up and being fairly wicked. Despite being a legendary fighter, there’s not much else to him. Nevertheless, we spend most of the second half with him, culminating in him butchering our presumptive hero after Hector kills Achilles’ cousin, mistaking him for Achilles (the cousin literally wears Achilles armour and helmet and makes out that he is indeed the legendary warrior, Achilles has spent the whole movie pushing back against his cousin wanting to fight, so really Achilles should blame himself or his cousin for his death). After slaying him, Achilles then drags Hector’s corpse through the dirt off the back of his chariot. Parading the body in front of his family and countrymen. All the while staring into the eyes of the father of the son he’s just killed. It’s overly and needlessly cruel. Especially considering it was a misunderstanding. The big problems with Achilles as the lead are firstly that Brad Pitt is giving an uncharacteristically bad performance. The accent doesn’t work. He’s vapid and vacant. Secondly, his character too seems empty, but this is portrayed as a virtuous quality. He doesn’t seem to believe in anything, except maybe not harming women that are in your capture (we’ll get to that), he’s broadly against Brian Cox’s Greek King (but it’s never really clear why outside of just generally disliking him as a person) and he wants to be remembered in the histories.

So yeah, Achilles too has a love interest. A captured Trojan temple girl (Rose Byrne) who is given to Achilles as a gift of the spoils of war. He unties her bonds but doesn’t let her free. Instead keeping her until she sleeps with him, which doesn’t take much time at all. He throws a bit of shite poetry at her, in an attempt of being deep and romantic. But then we’ll cut back to his allies and/or enemies talking about how he’s a brutish killer and then he too will give some quote about the meaningless of life and death. He’s against the king but it’s unclear what his alternative is, and he fights for the King anyway. Not cos he’s blackmailed or forced into it, but because he cares about his legacy. It’s a pretty flimsy plot device. 

So after a long chat with Hector’s father, Achilles seems to have a change of heart. He sets the girl free and gives Hector’s body back to Troy, along with 2 days of peace. 

Yadda-yadda-yadda they build a horse. So after killing off Hector and cementing Achilles as a cold, unfeeling villain, but then sort of back tracking on that, the film realises it doesn’t really have a protagonist anymore. So it reverts back to Paris, who hasn’t spoken a line of dialogue in over an hour. We last saw him bloodied and cowering at his brother's feet. We’ve not seen him feel any remorse or grow as a character through the movie. His brother dies and suddenly he's a brave, expert archer (there’s one quick shot of him practicing his archery) and the only voice of reason who suggests burning the horse. He just slots straight into the void left by Hector.

So then we have the finale, which is all very impressive with the huge practical wooden horse and swarms of stuntmen fighting around this massive burning set of Troy. And Achilles is there too, the Beast returning to rescue his Belle, but are we supposed to be rooting for him? Troy is burning, innocent people are dying. It’s pretty noble that he wants to save this one girl he knows, but he’s hardly a good guy at the end. To add insult to injury, he kills one Trojan guard and spares the other. The film wants us to think he’s a changed man cos he lets one man live while the corpse of the man he slaughtered seconds before is still in frame. He eventually finds Rose Byrne but Paris kills him, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it. Happy that Paris avenged his brother? Sad that Achilles is dead? Neither of these characters have been developed well over the past, nearly 3 hours of movie. 

It doesn’t help that there are far too many characters in the movie in general. On the Greek side you have the main King, his 3 subservient Kings, Achilles, Achilles right hand man, Achilles’ cousin, Achilles’ love interest. And then you have the same amount of the Trojan side. Again, with no clear answer of who we’re meant to be rooting for here. Both kings/kingdoms seem naive, stubborn, cruel and greedy. Willing to sacrifice thousands for nothing. 

Compared to the swords and sandals epics that Troy is trying to emulate, most notably Braveheart and Gladiator, this issue stands out even more. While both those movies, and the genre in general, have an abundance of supporting characters and subplots, they are both heavily anchored on Mel Gibson and Russel Crowe’s performances. We are seeing the events from their point of view so all the political machinations don’t bog them down. We can cut away to the King or Emperor plenty and it won’t matter because it’s still centred around the personal stories of Wallace and Maximus. 

Similarly, Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones are able to have a more ensemble cast of characters because they have more time. Troy is one movie, you need to pick a protagonist to carry the film. There is some interesting stuff there worth delving into. Be it Hector having to fight a battle he didn’t start and the grief of killing a boy in combat. Paris and Helen battling with the guilt of thousands dying for their love. Or Achilles’ grief and guilt of having killed dozens of people. But instead all of these themes are briefly glanced over. The film is too busy trying to be a classic tale of love and war and kings that it jettisons any attempts at nuance or depth. We never really get to know any of these characters or their struggles and in turn the film is cold and messy.

There’s still potential for a good film to be made from the classic Greek legend. But this one certainly doesn’t accomplish it. Either cut off a lot of the supporting characters and make a more nuanced film about there being good and evil on both sides. Or tell the whole story from one of Achilles, Hector, Paris or Helen’s viewpoint. Unfortunately, the movie we got was our first major warning sign that the genre hadn’t been as revatalised as Braveheart, Gladiator and Lord of the Rings had made people think. 

One side note before we finish. What’s with the post Braveheart/Gladiator/LOTR revival of swords and sandals/medieval epics all sharing the same cast members? Orlando Bloom is the obvious example, having starred in Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, 3 Lord of the Rings films and 3 Pirates of the Caribbean films in the space of 6 years. But his LOTR alum Sean Bean also appears in Troy, who would go on to keep playing these roles into the ground with projects like Black Death and Game of Thrones, along with his Kingdom of Heaven co-star Brendan Gleeson, who was also in Braveheart. Achilles' right hand man plays Leonidas’ right hand man in 300. John Shrapnel plays Nestor in Troy and Gaius in Gladiator. The list goes on. It seems once you’ve proven yourself in one sword swinging epic, you get typecast in all of them.