Remember that scene in Inglourious Basterds (2009) where Michael Fassbender's character, Lt. Archie Hicox, finds himself in a pickle? That was just one scene. That was child's play. In Centurion, his character finds himself in the shit from beginning to end. Remember how graphic the violence in that scene was? In Centurion, graphic doesn't start to describe it. Gory? Sure. But what's more, it's realistic.
People slaughter each other and when a blade slits a throat, slices a torso, or severs a head you can actually feel the laws of physics at work on its business end. But it isn't director Neil Marshall's intention to gross you out. The violence is simply a consequence of the story's circumstances, namely northern Britain somewhere during the Roman period and, apparently, warfare at the time wasn't for the faint-hearted.
Centurion Quintus Dias (Fassbender) is in charge of an outpost in the area and in addition to icy weather he has to ward off the Picts, a local tribe that uses guerrilla tactics to particular great effect, as Quintus would soon find out not only once but twice. The first instance leads to his capture, and the second –in a very cool and very realistic shot of a Roman battle sequence– the wiping out of an entire Roman army.
Strange enough, the movie almost comes over as a History Channel special, perhaps because there's nothing Hollywood about the production. The Roman soldiers, the Pict: they're hard and they're brave –commando-like– but they're also human; Quintus and a group of survivors whimper when they witness a Pict hacking off the head of a fellow Roman. Even Etain (Olga Kurylenko), a Pict woman warrior who's the closest match the movie has to a Hollywood cliché, is the way she is because of a traumatic childhood encounter with Roman soldiers.
In Centurion the characters are thrown into a pickle and everybody not involved is asked to take a step back and to just watch. There’ll be no helping hands; nothing artificial is to be thrown into the mix –the story is to be carried solely by the interaction among the characters. Which makes for a very interesting movie indeed.
(Running time: 97 minutes)
