NAPOLEON
Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix) is battle-ready;
COULDN’T ESCAPE IF HE WANTED TO (WOAH-WOAH-WOAAAH)
★★★★
OUT NOW / CERT 15 / 157 MINS
DIRECTOR Ridley Scott
CAST Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Ben Miles, Tahar Rahim, Ludivine Sagnier, Matthew Needham, Youssef Kerkour, Rupert Everett
PLOT The story of Napoleon Bonaparte (Phoenix): the emperor who rose to power after the French Revolution and went on to conquer half of Europe.
THE MARKETING FOR Napoleon did a bang-up job of making Ridley Scott’s take on the French emperor’s rise and fall look very grandiose and serious. But that’s not exactly what the film is like: this is a historical epic which is constantly on the lookout for subtle ways to undercut historical epics. If a man steps solemnly ashore on a beach in his beloved France, and bends, and kisses the ground, in a mark of ceremonial patriotism, that man will have to wipe sand off his lips a few moments later, and this is a film which shows you this. It would be going too far to describe it absolutely as a comedy, but in David Scarpa’s script, Scott’s direction, the rhythm of the editing by Claire Simpson and Sam Restivo, and in Joaquin Phoenix’s deadpan performance, the impulse to offset and amuse is strong.