Centurion

I must confess I thought this would be a 300 clone in both style and content. How wonderfully wrong I was. Don’t get me wrong, I loved 300 (I really loved 300) for its story, but not its accuracy. However, I wanted something different from Centurion and I got all I wanted and more! I am an avid history buff and this hit the spot just right in style and content. Neil Marshal did not say this is how it happened, rather, this is how it could have happened and he got it spot on.

Neil Marshal has just gone top of the premier league of writer\directors with this in-your-face, hack and slash historical action\thriller. Think “Deliverance” exchange the Hillbilly Rednecks with the Picts and the four businessmen with a handful of Roman Centurions and the chase is on!

Centurion is a fictional story based upon the ill-fated 9th legion that vanished without a trace in the Highlands of Scotland around 117AD. This action packed, gore fest is wonderfully worked from the bleak rainy landscape of the Scottish Highlands to the rough, tough characters. (Michael Fassbender) as Quintus Dias is solid and consistent throughout. Dominic West plays the uncompromising General Virilus to perfection and Olga Kurylenko as the mute Pict Etain is both scary and believable in her role. There are good supporting roles by Noel Clarke, David Morrisey, JJ Feild, Riz Ahmad and Imogen Poots also. Everyone played their part very well in fact. I found this film relayed the brutality of up-close and personal warfare of this period very realistically, perhaps too realistic for some, as I watched many people jumping, hiding and squirming all over the theatre at times, especially as axes spit heads apart, swords slashing throats copiously and there was an abundance of severed limbs. What surprised and delighted me considerably, was the fact that Neil Marshal did not balk at the usual Hollywood, men must not hit or kill women in movies. The roman soldiers happily killed the women in battle, which would have happened in the real life fighting of the times. I do not condone violence towards women, I’m just as happy watching the women hacking up the men and they do a lot of that. The fact is that two thousand years ago, it happened on a regular basis. However, this film not only shows warfare at its brutal best it also has the tension of a thriller as the Centurions’ first embark on rescuing their beloved leader General Virilus and then the subsequent chase back to the safety of their own frontlines with the barbarian Picts hard on their tail.

My verdict: A first class historical action\thriller. This is a must see film for action, thriller and gore lovers everywhere. Even historians will find little to complain about.