This reminded me a little of Sir Ian McKellen’s 1995 reimagining of “Richard III” as Ralph Fiennes turns his hand to directing this Shakespeare story of power-lust and betrayal. It’s maybe not the most famous of the bard’s works, nor for my money is it one of his most original. The story itself has shades of “Julius Caesar” too it as it depicts the rise and fall of the eponymous dictator (Fiennes). It all starts when the grain-deprived masses of the city take to the streets and their leader, who holds most of these plebs in utter contempt, finds himself unexpectedly deposed by the council - upon which sits his own mother (Vanessa Redgrave) - and shown the Appian Way. Disillusioned and furious, he enters into his own equivalent of a Faustian pact and swears allegiance to his bitterest enemy “Aufidius” (the seriously over-challenged Gerard Butler). What chance he can galvanise his new ally into helping him regain what he has lost - and, probably more consistently throughout this internecine web of deceit and suspicion, can anyone really trust anyone else to keep their promises? This does look good, and the assembled cast are extremely competent at delivering some of the poignant and thoughtful dialogue contained in this political tragedy, but I felt that perhaps too much of the nuance had to be condensed out of this necessarily abridged story, and somehow the fact that it wasn’t stage-bound lessened the intensity of the characterisations. Though she looked entirely natural in her pseudo-Fascist uniform, I felt Redgrave lacked for emotion as she performed and Fiennes over-compensated for that with plenty of intensely photographed opportunities for his nostrils to flare and his Adam’s Apple to agitate. As is so often the case with these adaptations, they can’t be as long as the original and so have to compromise. This one did a little too much of that for my liking. Still, if it encourages folk to read his works, then it is film well used.
