You will know the most cheerful, immediately satisfactory, OH-DAS-WHUT-GUT moment in “Gladiator 2” when you see him. The dopamine highlight of Ridley Scott’s long-awaited continuation of his epic from 2000, which was awarded the Oscar, is not the opening scene, in which Paul Mescal and his neighbors send the Roman Zenturios to attack.
It is not the moment when the mescal is forced to fight with a rabid couple, and the Irish crush of women wins by brutally biting the monkey. Not even the moment when an attacking rhino spills an unfortunate gladiator or in which a huge naval battle is re -enacted in a flooded Colosseum, completely with half a dozen hungry sharks. It is also not the moment when Mescal finally takes military general in an extremely Freudian revenge against Pedro Pedro Pescals, i.e. the showdown mano a mano, to which the film has led to almost two hours.
Denzel Washington, dressed in magnificent robes, with swinging arms and feathers
The outstanding scene in this huge, ultra-brutal sandal and sword film is one of the simplest: a man enters his job. Fair, one has to say that this man is played by Denzel Washington. And said workplace is a pit in which prisoners of war have to prove that they are suitable as gladiators who are supposed to maintain the patricians of the ancient Rome.
But this last detail is almost superfluous for what makes the sequence so exciting. And it’s not just about who enters the image section, but also about how he does. “Strolling” is a shy word to describe the way Washington, dressed in magnificent robes, with swinging arms and feathers, approaching his personal throne, ready to see who is worthy of his attention.
Ideally, the big rush of this set would consist in the fact that the handsome young star of this blockbuster hits his teeth in a crazy monkey. But what the adrenaline really drives up is, like Washington, after he has observed exactly how this candidate behaves in the most barbaric way you can imagine, three words say: “I buy him.”
Trailer “Gladiator 2”:
Even if you haven’t seen “Gladiator 2” yet, you have probably heard that Washington will steal the film as soon as it appears on the scene and safely stowed it in his cavity pocket for the rest of the term. His figure, a former slave who became a macler named Macrinus, closes a faustic pact with Mescals Lucius Verus Aurelius: fight for me, and you not only get a way into freedom, but also the chance to avenge your wife’s death.
For Macrinus, however, the moody blank is more than just a gladiator. He is an admission ticket into the inner circle that rules Rome. Much of Scott’s continuation follows the path of comfortable familiarity by either indicating the original film or directly referencing it: We can predict most steps that Mescal will take, how the hostile factions outside the arena will react, the decadent way how the twin emperors behave. But Macrinus is a joker. You really have no idea what he’ll do next, and that before he puts a double act with a chipped head.
A Greatest Denzel-Hits role
It is a role that is intended for a Greatest-Denzel-Hits role in a career that is already full of incredible work, and the perfect example of why Bad Denzel could indeed be the best Denzel. The Oscar winner never gives less than 100 percent, even if the film does not deserve what it has, but he gives a little more in malignant twists. He played doctors, lawyers, civil rights activists (American and African), police officers, soldiers, cowboys, pilots, teachers, coaches, prince, kings and normal people who just try to make ends meet. Most of them are firmly on the side of the good with at least one foot; Even his macbeth begins as a loyal subject of the kingdom before his moral compass breaks in two.
But if you could call your Macrinus “good” at all, this version has left the building for a long time when we meet it. And it is the way Washington is the cleverness of his character, his calculated chess trains and his ability to use the chaos to be advantageous – not to mention the gestures and gestures that the actor lifts to the level of the High Camp – which makes it so exciting to watch him.
“More wine!”
In many of his appearances of the past over 40 years, you can see a touch of Bad Denzel, especially in roles that tend to be a faulty, borderline antihero than a hero who behaves straight (“Mo ‘Better Blues”, “He Got Game”, “Flight”, “The Tragedy of Macbeth”). But when he lets his characters run wild and they indulge in their worst behavior, you can feel how Washington accesses a collective unconscious unconscious that feels almost dizzying. His figure in “Gladiator II” is the version of a torn leader from the Roman Empire, who knows how to flatter senators, how to disarm potential enemies and how to score with exuberance (you take a look at how he “more wine!” Before he elicits a drink -minded secret information), and how to turn this famous smile into a shark grin.
You can feel that Washington is inspired by all possible sources, but if you are looking for precedent for his Machiavellist strategist, you should see two specific “Bad Denzel” roles.
Unsurprisingly, the first is “Training Day” (2001)-the ultimate Denzel-Als-Bösewicht film, the highlight of the 21st century, in which a film star, who is considered idol in the morning, performs a charismatic U-turn. It is known that Detective Alonzo Harris is not good as soon as Ethan Hawke enters orbit as a newcomer Jake Hoyt, and that the worst bull of the LAPD will give his protégé an unsentimental lesson in terms of street guide. The sheer joy with which Harris exercises his dominance over everyone he encountered, from unfortunate college students to informants from gangs to his supposed superiors, the “three wise”, has a magical attraction on you; Hoyt is the guide who makes you sit on the passenger seat of this predator, but it is Harris, for whom you are secretly enthusiastic.
A human cobra
It was not for nothing that Washington won his second Oscar (and his first as best main actor) for the role of this magnetic, thoroughly corrupt police officers. Every time his figure from “Gladiator II” snaps extravagant with his fingers, snaps after an allusion to his tongue or the volume from a scream to a “King Kong cannot wear anything!”-You can practically hear how Alonzo Harris stands outside the picture and slowly claps for this alpha animal of the eternal city.
The second is Frank Lucas, the main character in Washington’s other cooperation with Sir Ridley Scott, “American Gangster” (2007). The film is partly biography, partly police film and partly mafia thriller and tells the rise of Lucas from the right man of drug baron Bumpy Johnson from Harlem to the king of New York heroin trade in the 1970s. Lucas keeps his control over the lucrative heroin market primarily because of its ability not to attract attention. His later doom is accelerated by the regrettable decision to stand out from the crowd and to wear a chinchilla fur coat and a suitable hat in a price box fight. (Lucas would never show himself in a flowered, patterned robe and WWF-sized gold belts.)
How he can observe everything from every corner on the edge of the field
But his true superpower is the way he can watch everything from every corner on the edge of the field and then make his train cool. He is a human cobra, patient, secret and ready to play people against each other and collect the prey afterwards – a property that the manipulator par excellence from “Gladiator II” also has in abundance. Both prefer to act out of the shadow until a demonstration of power is necessary. One could argue that Lucas is not a complete villain; He buys a villa to his mother. But if you consider how he breaks a family meal in a restaurant, shoot a rival on the street and then return to his lecture between the bite, you would not call him heroes.
The jungle is out there
One of the best “Bad Denzel” moments in Scott’s epic history of crimes and punishment comes towards the end, after Lucas has been interrogated and from his personal Javert, Detective Richie Roberts, was interrogated-the fact that he is played by none other than the star of the original film “Gladiator”, Russell Crowe, the scene is simply much more beautiful.
The two men in verbal arguments about the gray area between law and injustice that extends over a hectare, and while Crowe has the righteousness on his side in his role, Washington gangsters have both the gift of speaking and talent to step into the dirt. He is just someone who saw an opportunity and took them. He can’t help that he was smarter and clever than the competition. Oh, and don’t talk to him about “normal”. If you have lived life that he lived, this adjective means almost nothing. The jungle is out there.
The glitter in the eyes
Washington’s voice has something seductive until he decides to be deadly. He takes a full coffee cup off the table to underline a point. But for a few moments you feel attracted to Lucas’s idea that he is nothing more than a successful businessman and that all of this is just a normal business operations. The glitter in the eyes of his police officer from “Training Day” will soon be replaced by a cold in the window pane for his entrepreneur soul from “American Gangster”, but it is still there.
And it is the memory of these two super charming villains that come to mind when Macrinus enters the scene in “Gladiator II”. Washington builds on what he has done through the shadow world in the two prior forays before slipping into a tooga and lifting into the stratosphere of the love-hate-on-sie. It is hoped that the award -winning bodies will recognize what he is doing here.
But at least you can see how the actor enters this juicy Badenzel role and explains with an expression of limitless admiration: “Myyyy Man!”