Word: hounsou
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Maximus escapes the executioner's blade and is sold into a troupe of gladiators, including the African Juba (Djimon Hounsou). Their job is to fight and die, and their Vince McMahon is the wily Proximo (Oliver Reed). Act II of Gladiator is a backstage show-biz story, the one about the old pro who makes a comeback in a new role. Maximus' battleground is now the arena; instead of barbarians, his opponents are hungry tigers. Proximo tells Maximus he must make the crowd love him. If he does, he'll go out there as Tiger Chow but come back...
...epic. Scott has never been particularly adept at the human aspect of his stories (it's no coincidence that Blade Runner is his best film) and here the human relationships are often severely lacking, cold even. The friendship between Maximus and a fellow gladiator (played by Amistad's Djimon Hounsou) has no emotional resonance, nor does his bland romance (if you want to call it that) with the emperor's sister (Connie Nielsen). And as wonderful as Crowe is, the detached nature of his character (mostly the fault of the script) hinders his ability to turn Maximus into a truly...
...deities would stumble either professionally or personally. Small chance: by our calculations, the subjects of the past three Hollywood issues show an 87% chance of stardom and a 0% chance of jail time. This year's group is, from left to right: JOAQUIN PHOENIX, VINCE VAUGHN, NATALIE PORTMAN, DJIMON HOUNSOU, CATE BLANCHETT, TOBEY MAGUIRE, CLAIRE FORLANI, GRETCHEN MOL, CHRISTINA RICCI, EDWARD FURLONG and RUFUS SEWELL...
...quick cut, grainy, indelible--serves several functions. It forces us to recognize that slavery is something far worse than nonfreedom, that it is an institution that grants some men the right to utterly dehumanize other men. It completely justifies the bloody murders that ensue when this figure, Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), frees himself and leads the human cargo of the slave ship La Amistad in revolt. And slammed at us at the start of Amistad, Steven Spielberg's movie about that incident, it signals the director's intention to ignore the principle--lofty sentiments excusing clunky filmmaking--upon which most morally...
Although their credibility is ultimately undermined by Spielberg's treatment, the movie does contain numerous excellent acting performances. Djimon Hounsou plays the chief African with true and awesome pathos and power. He does more than anything else in the movie to inspire sympathy for the African's cause, and some of the scenes in which he attempts to communicate with his American counsels are quite touching. Hopkins is superb as the embittered yet wise ex-president. His long speech to the Supreme Court at the end is one of the most sincere and meaningful moments in the film...