13th Warrior
1999 • Buena Vista

There is something to be said for watching a good period piece movie. The audience that tends to watch these films shouldn’t be lumped into some artsy snob category. Anyone can appreciate a period piece. A good one, at least. Here, I will go over two of them, each fit for different tastes, both set in a land far, far away in a time long, long ago.

Heralded by some and reviled by others during its theatrical release, the 13th Warrior makes it way onto home video for you to decide. Unfairly overlooked, this adventure/horror/thriller set in the 10th century deserves a new audience to discover and revive it. Antonio Banderas reminds us that after stinkers like Two Much, Assassins, and Miami Rhapsody he still can act. If fact, if you only know Banderas from his recent work, you are missing some great performances like in Philadelphia, but mainly further back in his Spanish days. Working for gifted Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, Banderas gave some wonderful performances in films like Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, and Matador. With Warrior, Banderas is back in top Zorro form.

As Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, (the short version of his name), Banderas plays an Arab poet, sent from his homeland to be an ambassador (and to be away from the king’s woman,) in faraway lands. Along with his friend Melchisidek (Omar Sharif), they stumble upon a band of Viking Warriors. Settling down with them for a spell, Ahmed ends up getting recruited by them as, you guessed it, the 13th warrior, when they have to go back to their land which is being savaged by a mysterious band of creatures(?) who eat the flesh of the dead. (The film is based on Michael (“Jurassic Park”) Chrichton’s 1974 book, “Eaters of the Dead,” with elements of “Beowulf” and history mixed together.) This is where things start to get interesting.

Reluctantly, Ahmed goes along and slowly learns the ways of the Norse and what it takes to be a warrior. The film takes its time before we get to see much of the enemy. This way we have a chance to become familiar with this foreign cast who, refreshingly, isn’t recognizable. This lets us become more involved when we see what they are up against. When we start to see the enemy, snaking across the misty landscape, lit up like a burning river, it is a truly scary sight. Finally, I felt the thrill of being scared in a movie, a feat that recent duds like Deep Blue Sea, The Haunting, and Lake Placid didn’t accomplish. If feels a step-off from traditional Hollywood movies of this nature (pay attention to the love aspect.)

With the delayed release of the film in theatres — (rumors abounded of overblown budgets, reshoots and additions of scenes by Chrichton himself taking over from John (Die Hard and Thomas Crown Affair) McTiernan and poor initial test scores, the film got a bad rap. While watching this on video diminishes its grand-scale staging, it holds up nonetheless and is definitely worth the viewing.

An Ideal Husband
1999 • Miramax

Having put it off for quite some time, I finally made myself sit through An Ideal Husband. Not the most pressing film on my “to watch list”, yet I’m glad I did because this is an extremely enjoyable film. Based on Oscar Wilde’s play and written and directed for the screen by Oliver Parker II (1995’s Othello), the film flows freely and is digested very easily.

Taking place in upper-class England in 1895, during a mating season of sorts where proposals fly about like so many shuttlecocks at badminton/tea parties, we follow the lives of five individuals whose lives all carefully intersect. As our main focus, we have Rupert (My Best Friend’s Wedding, Inspector Gadget) Everett playing Lord Arthur “To love oneself is the start of a lifelong romance” Goring, a bachelor who spends his rich days partying and ‘visiting’ with all the local women. Mabel (Minnie Driver - Good Will Hunting) has eyes for Arthur while her brother is his best friend Sir Robert Chiltern (Jeremy Northam - The Net, Mimic, Emma), a rising politician with nothing standing in his way. Until Ms. Chevely (Julianne Moore - Boogie Nights, Big Lebowski) enters the picture. Ms. Chevely has information about Sir Robert that she intends to use unless he votes in favor of a certain deal. The fact that this man rose to his place in society on perhaps a lie would be a shock to all those who know and love him and possibly the end of his career. His wife Gertrude (Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth, Pushing Tin) is a kind and sweet woman who hasn’t the faintest thought in her head that her dear husband would ever have done something wrong in his past to place him where he is in the present. What if she finds out what he has done? Scandal. The game is on and the tangled web is woven.

The film works because the writing is sharp and the performances appear as if every single actor is truly enjoying his and her parts vitally important to the success of this fine ensemble cast. They seem to be having a great time playing these old-time yuppies and do so convincingly. A true standout of the film, besides the fun Everett, is Jeremy Northam. Like in the soon-to-video The Winslow Boy, he is becoming a great acting force that we will, hopefully, be seeing much more of in many films.

Unfortunately, period films do not get as large an audience as they deserve. Thankfully, more and more films are slowly working to reverse that trend (read: Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth.) As serious as these films sometimes are, it is a pleasure to sit through a light comedic one like this as well. No, there are no explosions or car chases, but as nice as those are, sometimes the silence from this absence is golden.

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