Pax romana

Director Neil Marshall’s story of a group of Roman soldiers trapped behind enemy lines in an era of Roman expansionism is no Gladiator — and this is high praise. Centurion has neither the epic proportions nor the grand pretensions of Gladiator. And instead of an edifying sermon on Roman ideals, it gives you a complicated account of history without ever losing its light touch.

In 117 AD, as Rome struggles to expand the boundaries of its Empire, it meets fierce resistance from the people of Northern Britain (roughly, Scotland), known as the Picts. To break the deadlock, the feared Ninth Legion of the Roman army is sent to meet the Picts with one ace up their sleeve — Etaine (Olga Kurylenko), a defector who will hunt down the Pict leader Gorlacon and so assure Rome’s supremacy. But when, in the first of many plot twists, Etaine turns out to be a double agent, the Ninth Legion is destroyed. Now, a small group of surviving soldiers, led by Quintus Dias (Micheal Fassbender), find themselves on the wrong side of the divide and must get back home.

Though his initial shirtless appearance in a flurry of Scottish snow would leave you expecting otherwise, Fassbender gives an introspective performance as the centurion who leads this pack to safety and communicates that one endearingly real quality that generally seems to have eluded Roman heroes portrayed in film: self-doubt. There’s no bluster, no overreaching of ambitions here; Quintus is just a guy in a hole and he’s fighting to get out with his honour intact. It is really Fassbender’s performance that makes the movie, and gives Centurion more depth than your regular chase movie or swords-and-sandals saga.

In hot pursuit is the bloodthirsty Etaine, whose family was brutally slaughtered by Romans when she was a child and who has vowed vengeance against Rome. A kind of warrior princess who excels at hunting, thankfully for us, Etaine has cleverly been portrayed as a mute so we don’t have to sit through endless monologues on her hatred for Rome. Her rage is shown in just one scream of triumph after she vanquishes a Roman general. For the most part, she inspires a chill as we root for our group of soldiers trying to throw her off their trail.

As far as chase movies go, Centurion’s pacing is faultless and the cinematography brilliantly captures the breathtaking backdrop to the hunt. Above all, Centurion manages to bring home the inexorable demands of an expansionist war and how the meanings we attach to humanity change in battle. The film is laced with an atmosphere of grim brutality. The final lesson it is trying to preach might be that in war there are no rules.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2010.