Review of Ironclad (2011) by Theta S — 04 Mar 2011

Ironclad is one of those films that doesn't mind stretching reality a little bit for the sake of entertainment.

Following the signing of the Magna Carta, King John (Paul Giamatti) decides to use the influence of the Pope to regain control of his kingdom through the use of Danish mercenaries.

Unfortunately, the first onscreen deed by these mercenaries is to literally cross swords with a small group of Knights Templar including hero character, Thomas Marshall (James Purefoy).

Following this initial encounter, Marshall is despatched by Archbishop Langton (Charles Dance) along with Baron Albany (Brian Cox) and a band of men with differing motivations to take and defend Rochester Castle, the keystone to preventing the King from regaining his power base of London and buy time for French re-enforcements.

Okay, I'm not going to mince words about this one, there have been reviews in the UK that has given this film four stars out of five, and given some of the acting talent here - you get Charles Dance, Brian Cox and Derek Jacobi in this film - you would expect a four stars out of five film.

What you get is basically get is several pub brawls with swords with some talky bits to justify the blood which is generated in the fight scenes.

Firstly, the fight scenes - yes, they are brutal... yes, there's plenty of blood flying around, but somebody should have really said that you can't pretty much build a film around the 12th century version of a bar room brawl... or several in this film's case. In addition to that, the fight scenes camerawork moves at a dizzying pace - all I'll say is if you suffer from seasickness, take some tablets beforehand.

There are subplots, mainly one involving a forbidden romance between Marshall and Rochester Castle's lady of the manor, Isabel (Kate Mara) which barely justifies it's inclusion, plus minor subplots which try to deal with the loss of innocence due to war, whether war is justified in the name of religion, freedom or love of country and the varying motivations of the supporting characters to take part in this quest.

Finally, the acting muscle in this film does not serve to provide an empathy with the characters... in fact, you don't care why they fight - they simply do.

They say that the devil gets all the best tunes, which is very true to this plot as the "good guys" don't really give you a reason to root for them. In Paul Giamatti's King John, you get a character who chews the scenery, spits it out and chews on what's left. Unfortunately, with his shouting and bravado, I could only make comparisons with a more homicidal and vicious version of Peter Ustinov's Prince John from Disney's Robin Hood - especially during one scene where in an act of bravado he removes the hands and feet from one of his beaten opponents because he has his troops backing him.

Basically, this is a made for TV film with a big budget and really one for DVD. What tries to be an historical epic is instead (and forgive the pun) Saturday Knight's alright for fightin'...followed by Sunday Knight, Monday Knight... you get the picture.