An Ode to a Bad Movie
By Not for the first time, I’ve become mildly obsessed with a bad movie.
The movie in question is Troy, which appeared and disappeared in early 2004. Troy attempted to ride the success of Gladiator, and, by all accounts, did so better than Oliver Stone’s horrific Alexander (the director’s cut of which I’ve seen numerous advertisements for over the past two weeks; this should be quite troubling, the film is irredeemably bad).
Troy features bad acting, bad dialogue, and unnecessary alterations to the story, the most notable of which involve the deaths of both Menelaus and Agammemnon, and the de-gayification of Patroclus and Achilles. Nonetheless, I remain fascinated by certain aspects of the film. The battle scenes, I daresay, are nearly as good as the ones Peter Jackson filmed in The Two Towers. At any given moment, you understand what is happening in the battle, what the protagonists are doing, and how the actions of the protagonists affect the outcome of the conflict. Director Wolfgang Peterson avoids the kind of music video-esque quick cuts that render so many movie battle scenes unwatchable.
At the heart of the film lies the conflict between Hector and Achilles. In the same way that it’s hard to write a bad country song about alcoholism, it’s bloody difficult to tell the story of Hector and Achilles badly. Eric Bana and Brad Pitt are perfect as Hector and Achilles, respectively. Bana plays Hector with the necessary degree of grim responsibility and fatalism, while Pitt is an inspired choice for shallow pretty boy Achilles. The battles between Patroclus and Hector, then Hector and Achilles, particularly stand out. Bana plays Hector in the first battle with an almost giddy enthusiasm, clearly surprised that he has managed to win, and his disappointment upon finding that his foe was Patroclus instead of Achilles is obviously crushing.
The battle between Achilles and Hector is the high point of the film. It seems to me that, for all of his bluster, Achilles is uncertain of the outcome for the first two-thirds or so of the battle. Bana’s Hector is under no such illusion, and understands from the start that he’ll be dead within three minutes. The two warriors fight each other with the precision of Ali, each reacting in advance to the moves of the other. Achilles slowly but surely builds his advantage; in the last thirty seconds or so, you can see that he has become confidant of the outcome. Peterson heightens the tension by cutting periodically to Priam, Helen, and Paris, watching from the walls of Troy. They also understand that the fight can only have one outcome, yet hope that somehow Hector will prevail.
Other than that, the movie is pretty bad. I recommend nothing about it except for the portion between the sortie of Patroclus and the funeral of Hector.