Ironclad

Mix together the Seven Samurai and Gladiator, toss in actors from The Game of Thrones and Brother Cadfael, and set it in medieval times, and you've got Ironclad, a not-entirely-accurate but still quite fun romp through a castle siege.

James Purefoy stars as the world-weary Templar knight who is just trying to get home. It's the time of the Magna Carta. Evil King John has signed away many of his rights to the nobles. Unfortunately for most of the land, Kind John isn't happy with this situation and enlists the help of a Danish army to squash the nobles who stood up against him. Purefoy gets enlisted for a last-ditch effort to hold Rochester Castle against King John long enough for the French to come and save England. All they can assemble in time is a rag-tag band of fighters, each with his own quirky personality. Including, of course, the young squire with wide, innocent eyes.

I love some of the actors in this. Derek Jacobi has long been a favorite of mine. Charles Dance - aka Tywin Lannister - is also quite good. Mackenzie Crook is another GoT member. I love the medieval setting. Sure there are a variety of issues - for example the siege at Rochester was more about starvation than battle. But they do show the starvation aspect of it, and then "liven it up". I've come to accept that movies aren't documentaries and take liberties to get their message across. Hopefully people who are interested then research to find out the whole truth.

And, that being said, the movie does make at least a decent effort to show medieval life for what it was. It wasn't neat and tidy. People didn't wear polyester suits and dance on pristine floors. There was dirt and grime. Running out of food was a real concern in a day without refrigerators and long-distance trucking. But, that being said, these were not "foreign aliens." They had the same hopes and fears, loves and goals, that we have today, just from a slightly different vantage point. The woman of the castle wants love and respect. The knight wishes the fighting could come to an end but is willing to do what needs to be done to keep others safe. Jacobi's character is caught between loyalties. There are very few "pure evil" or "pure good" characters here - they each have their burdens to bear.

The swordfighting scenes are generally well done - a combination of soldiers who were well trained in the art and also real men who did what it took to win a fight. It wasn't always elegant and pretty. Sometimes it was rough and tumble. The swordmaster here was Richard Ryan, who also handled this task for Troy. Note that, for the squeamish, there are some fairly gory parts to the story.

Related to that, and related to the notion that how we see things now is perhaps different from how medieval people saw things, in one scene the Lady of the castle, Lady Isabel, comes to flirt with the knight. She says, in essence, "it would be useful if you taught me how to wield a sword so I could defend myself." Most of us modern people would say "absolutely" - and given the siege that soon ensues we'd perhaps have been right. But the knight instead says, "the reason I wield it is so you never have to deal with the burden of killing others." This was the way most medieval folk viewed the world. As the siege progresses, the men discuss, quite seriously, that they'll kill off the women before the invaders come in. This is the same style of dialogue featured in Game of Thrones during the assault on the castle. Women weren't expected to defend themselves - they were pure and separate from those violent situations. They were to be protected at all costs - even if it meant they died rather than face the situation. So a quite rational view from medieval point of view and sensibility. For some of us modern watchers, we have a different view on men and women, and our reaction might differ :).

All in all, I enjoyed the movie a lot, and have seen it a number of times.

Buy Ironclad from Amazon.com

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