Yesterday I was let go from my job. I spent my day making breakfast: eggs and toast and coffee; playing video games: 8 Helldivers 2 missions; and watching the film Gladiator. This review is not, at all, about me. It’s about the movie.
Contexuous and Scottus
So Ridley Scott is an interesting director. Back in the day, and when I say back in the day, I mean way back in the day, the dude made a slew of influential, culturally relevant films. Alien is a big one. Gladiator is another. There’s a bunch of other films that you may have seen or heard of: Hannibal, Black Hawk Down, and of course, Blade Runner. More recently, he made The Last Duel, which I talked about, and also Gladiator 2, which I haven’t seen yet. I figured the first film was meant to be seen before the sequel.
Gladiator won a bunch of awards. It was a fantastic film as per audiences and critics, and it made a bunch of money. If you haven’t seen it, or don’t know why you should see it, I’d like to point towards one aspect, and one aspect alone: the storytelling. This particular point transcends cultural relativism. By that I mean that if you only started watching movies in 2008, which is eight years after Gladiator was released, you’re going to lose out on a bit of the context. That’s ok. There’s nothing wrong with that! But that’s context. I wasn’t really watching movies in 2000. I was four. I was very unemployed. It seems timely that I should watch a movie today, now that I am unemployed, to watch a film that was released when I was unemployed. As a four year old. Who didn’t have any film context. And was unemployed. This review is not about me.
I mention the year 2008 specifically, because that was the year the film Iron Man was released. It was also the year I started collecting movie tickets and paying attention. That is to say, yes, I have a ticket for almost every film I’ve ever seen since the year 2008. This paragraph is irrelevant to the review and very much a flex. If you haven’t collected tickets or recorded all the movies you’ve ever seen, you’re definitely a commercial and professional failure- which is also irrelevant to the irrelevant paragraph.
Motivus
Like I said, I’d like to point your attention towards one aspect of the film Gladiator, which is the story, and how it’s told. The story, at its core, is about revenge. Bad guy kills good guy’s family, good guy wants to kill bad guy. Good guy overcomes the odds and achieves his goal, the end. The goal is a very classic “hero’s journey” type of goal, in that the good guy wants Rome to be a republic, but the bad guy wants Rome to be a dictatorship. That’s not at all, by the way, a parallel to the 2025 state of American politics. There are also definitely no parallels to my employment status and the fact that Maximus was a general at one point and a slave at another. This review is not about me.
Ridley Scott is a fantastic storyteller, and his work in The Last Duel is proof. He can see the core story. He knows what he wants to tell the audience. He has a grasp of basic western storytelling techniques. He is adept at crafting sets. He is an artist at drawing performances from his cast. Scott is, indubitably, a fantastic manager. There’s no doubt. But the first point, in that he knows the core story, is the key to why Gladiator is as lauded as it is. Scott. Tells. A. Story.
The story, no matter how straightforward or relatively cliche it may be, is told in a way that is entrancing and engrossing. That’s hard to do. Let’s look at the film Fall Guy. I saw Fall Guy, but I didn’t write about it. I didn’t even tweet about it. Why? Because it just wasn’t… enough. This review is not about me.
Look. Fall Guy is a filmmakers’ love story to other filmmakers. It’s a nod to the stunt people and writers and producers and directors and I won’t deny that it does justice to those who put their bodies on the line for our entertainment- much like the ancient gladiators of Rome. Much like the mindless drones of the corporate world. Who I am not. Anymore. Because I was laid off. I am unemployed. I will accept cash to help you move (see: Plug paragraph of the About Me page)( This review is not about me).
But Fall Guy is… meandering. It zig-zags its plot. Yes, there are similarities; enough that my random example can be construed as Fall Guy was based on Gladiator. I’m not saying that. But there’s many parallel plotlines. A romance. Revenge. Proving one’s worth while disproving an imitator. Having to play the game of the usurper and beat them at their own game. Have the audience root for the protagonist instead of the impersonator. Insurmountable odds. This review is not about me.
Emotionus
Gladiator sets itself apart via emotions. Love, as personally motivating as it can be, is a poor translation to screen. Unless your film is all about love, and only about love, it’s often an unconvincing motivation or rationale in a film or story. Harry Potter was ultimately unsatisfying- and fuck you if you disagree- because Voldemort was defeated because Harry’s mom loved him? That’s the reason? Fuck you, JK Rowling, for more reasons that this one. Love is a trope and a cliche and cannot and will not ever be a satisfying motivational technique in a film, regardless of liberal ideologies and the objectification of women as prizes for the protagonist at the culmination of the film ala Die Hard.
To return to form, Gladiator sets itself as a solid story due to its solid grounding in its motivation for its protagonist that is not love. His motivation is peace. Yes, Maximus may love his wife and child, much as a corporate worker loves his job, but Maximus wanted peace, much as a corporate worker wants money and blow. This is not about me. Maximus’s motivation was convincing- even though it was ripped away and replaced with vengeance. This is not about me. That works. That’s convincing. The film Fall Guy didn’t work, like me right now, because, even though the core story was the same, the protagonist’s motivation was the girl. That doesn’t work. Mature adults know that that’s not enough.
So, after all of this, which is to say, not much, after all is said and read, I think that the film Gladiator was well told- despite the really rough editing around the character Proximo- and for the day and age, I’m sure the cinematography was absolutely stellar. The film Gladiator should be considered
GOOD
I saw Gladiator on Tubi, but I’m sure you can find it elsewhere. I am, as of May 28th, 2025, unemployed, so please feel free to kick an interview my way.
This review is not about me.
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