Alexander

Alexander (Director: Oliver Stone)

Yet another American iconic director, Oliver Stone could retire and be a legend with films like Platoon (where he won his first Best Director Oscar) and another favorite of all time, JFK. I liked Natural Born Killers quite a bit, and Born on the Fourth of July (with which he won his second Best Director Oscar) has good moments, and other minor classics include Wall Street and Nixon. He won the Oscar for his screenplay, Midnight Express. Stone's other directorial films include Heaven And Earth, Talk Radio, Salvador, U-Turn, Any Given Sunday, and The Doors, which may not be the best movies in the world but have some good performances and/or moments.

Here is a movie Oliver Stone got greedy with, a labor of love that pulls great performances out of his actors but is lacking in some dramatic sweep. Colin Farrell plays Alexander the Great, but what makes Alexander great is hard to discern. It is mentioned several times that he is the first to conquer so much territory in history, but the man himself doesn't come off as anything special, he just seems like he's the only one to have the nerve. Maybe that was the point, to downplay his legendary status, which is what many films have done this year to try to get "real." At some point, studios are going to figure out that we like the legend more than the reality. How you get around the facts, though, is a tough decision.

You know in Braveheart, when William Wallace emerges from simple man to legend after he takes on hordes of English soldiers and leads smaller numbers in to battle and still somehow wins, through sheer will and intelligence? This is the type of thing, I believe, an audience member needs to grasp onto a main character. We never doubted Wallace's abilities and we understood why thousands of Scots followed him. In Alexander, I never knew why he was a leader to these men, since it seemed like many of the men hated him in the first place, resented his emergence into power and the way he received it. I can't imagine a man like that conquering the world, but the movie asks us to believe that. With reality, you have to make it seem like the characters following the principle figure believe he is a legend, if not necessarily your film does.

It seems the provacateur Stone has a hard time expressing what he believes. He's trying to get it right, this is a topic he loves, and he doesn't want to venture off into conjecture like so many of his classic films do. Ripe for Stone is the conspiracy involving the death of Philip (Val Kilmer), Alexander's father, who commanded the respect of many good men, and the suggestion that his mother Olympias (Angelina Jolie) was behind it. It might be the best sequence in the film, but this is not the story Stone wants to linger on--obviously, Alexander was much more than a man thrust into power through shady circumstances. The much-discussed homosexual depiction, which has Greeks up in arms, is very subtle, although it's plain through the language and the way he interacts with his friend Hephastion (Jared Leto) and other men that Stone believes this aspect to be true--but again, he doesn't go out and say it.

JFK has numerous scenes that Stone plainly invented to get many considerations packed into the film. Jim Garrison's meeting with "X," is a major one, and the ones where he plants characters in a documented situation who may or may not have been there. That was 28 years ago at the time the movie was made and he was unafraid to explore these kinds of possibilities. This movie is set around 2300 years ago and the chance to delve into all sorts of interesting facets of such a character give way to historical documents.

Indeed, Alexander the Great conquered worlds no one had dared, especially Persia which is modern-day Iran. This is to be respected, but in the midst of several confusing battle scenes, we don't see any technique or military tactics at work here. The movie could have been great just focusing on that. It's always fun to get into the inner workings of a thrilling task.

Performances by Farrell, Jolie, Kilmer, and even Leto are among their best. There's a cameo from Anthony Hopkins as Ptolemy, a teacher who serves as the film's narrator who experienced firsthand the rule of Alexander. Christopher Plummer plays Aristotle, the teacher of young Alexander. After that, the rest of the cast give fine support.

You have a paper due on Alexander? Watch this film. You want to really get into the meat of his character? We may have to wait for Baz Luhrmann to make his interpretation.