Centurion
Review
by Anthony Morris
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Centurion
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Neil Marshall has a rock-solid track record when it comes to bloody good fun. From his first film Dog Soldiers (they're soldiers… and they’re werewolves!) through The Decent and Doomsday, he rarely puts a foot wrong when it comes to serving up quality cheap thrills. So Centurion
might seem at first glance to be something of a chance of piece : based
around the story of the Roman Ninth Legion, who marched into the wilds
of Scotland in the first century AD and never came back.
It
sounds like it has at least one foot based in reality – not an
area Marshall's previous films have had much time for. But here he
manages to combine his love of all-action film-making with a thin
(occasionally very thin) layer of historical accuracy to create perhaps
his most satisfying film to date. Quintus Dais (Michael
Fassbender) is the commander of a small fort on the border between
Roman-controlled Britain and the free lands to the north ruled by the
Picts, savage tribespeople who don’t fight according to the Roman rules
of warfare.
If you think that's the last parallel this film has to make with the War on Terror, think again...
For
example, they overrun his fort during a night-time sneak attack,
capturing Dais and taking him hostage. Meanwhile, General Virilus
(Dominic West, AKA McNulty from The Wire) has been given the job of leading the Ninth Legion north and solving the Pict problem once and for all. The
bad news is, the Picts are one step ahead of them all the way; the
worst news is, soon Dais is leading a handful of survivors across the
barren Scottish highlands as they desperately try to escape a pack of
Picts lead by the silent but deadly Etain (Olga Kurylenko) who have
sworn to track them down and kill them or die trying. After
the Iraq War analogies (and plenty of severed heads and spurting blood)
of the first half, this segues into a tense and single-minded chase
film that's solidly effective despite the occasional cliché (such as
jumping off a cliff into a river to avoid capture). The performances pump up the underwritten characters to good effect too, making Centurion one of the best B-grade action thrillers this year. 4 out
of 5
Centurion
Australian release: 29th July,
2010
Official
Site: Centurion
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Dominic West, Olga Kurylenko
Director: Neil Marshall
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