If you loved swords, knights or heroic fantasy in the barren era before Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring made such things viable at the box office, there was a long period where aside from not-entirely-satisfying one-offs like Excalibur or Legend, movie-wise you had the choice of leaden sub-Conan the Barbarian quest movies or hair-raisingly childish fantasies where the threadbare nature of the filmmakers’ imaginations was matched only by the meagerness of their budgets. Though theoretically aimed at different age groups, these movies shared in common simple revenge or quest plots, almost uniformly flat direction and poor pacing and often, the same few desert landscapes. Since the success of the Lord of the Rings franchise, things have significantly improved, if only in terms of budget and professionalism. Jonathan English’s Ironclad is in many ways a pretty typical example of the post-LOTR – and even more, post-Zack Snyder’s 300, straight-to-video, swords-and-armour blockbuster. It shares the same flaws – more of which later – as many similar movies, but in general it’s far better than expected and makes the most of – rather than being hobbled by – its particular sub-genre pigeonhole.
The story is within the well-worn Seven Samurai mould, but is actually based, if sketchily, on real events. In brief, after signing – under duress – the Magna Carta that limited Royal power in 1215, King John of England – best remembered as the villainous Prince John of Robin Hood fame – immediately set about dismantling the charter and re-establishing his absolute power over the realm. In order to prevent him re-conquering the country with an army of Danish mercenaries, a small band of warriors attempt to hold the strategically crucial castle of Rochester while they wait for a French army, enlisted by the rebellious barons, to come to the rescue. And over the course of 116 mostly well-paced minutes, that’s just what happens. As the film opens, a group of monks seek shelter at a castle during a storm, but quickly it’s revealed that these are no ordinary monks, but a group of Knights Templar, a group that had been active on the side of the rebels in the civil war that led to the signing of the Magna Carta. Soon, the King unexpectedly arrives at the castle and before long, all but one of the Templars is dead. That survivor is Thomas Marshal and after fleeing, he ends up in the company of Archbishop Langton, one of the leaders of the anti-Royal faction. Under Langton’s influence, Marshal is soon gathering together a small band of stereotypes capable of holding Rochester Castle against the onslaught of King John’s Danish mercenary army. The band gets to the castle, where its ageing owner, who is essentially uninterested in politics, receives them without much enthusiasm. The siege begins, there’s much violence and bloodshed, the lord of the castle’s young and neglected wife Lady Isabel, becomes romantically involved with Thomas and all goes pretty much as you’d expect; most of the band is killed and in the end Thomas has to fight against the leader of the Danish mercenary army. The French arrive, King John is defeated and escapes, Thomas and Isabel ride off together.
As that brief outline suggests, there are many not-so-great points about Ironclad. It’s completely, almost scene-for-scene predictable. The characters only occasionally betray more than a basic, two-dimensional comic book depth, and the dialogue is sometimes a bit clunky. There are occasionally lamentable bits of digital gore too, and some of the fight scenes are cut so rapidly that, as well as giving a vivid sense of action as intended, it’s irritatingly hard to make out what is going on. Every now and then – though thankfully not often – a shot will have a cheap, almost camcorder vibe in the tradition of modestly-budgeted movies that are shot on digital video. And yet, Ironclad remains watchable, gripping even, where so many movies of its type are just tedious. Though the movie is stylistically post-300, Joseph C. Nemec III’s production design and David Eggby’s cinematography are classy, bringing an evocative, gritty and chilly starkness to the movie’s visuals rather than the sheen of CG unreality familiar from so many movies of its type. This classiness is reflected too in Lorne Balfe’s lush and sweeping score, which enhances the film, especially in its atmospheric landscape shots, sometimes misty and rain-sodden, sometimes lush and green. Although the direction sometimes errs on the side of being too choppy, as in the aforementioned fight scenes, and indulges a little too often in gimmicks like splashing blood catching the light or apparently landing on the camera lens, Jonathan English handles the movie with skill and assurance. Kinetic when it needs to be and even sometimes when it doesn’t, his dynamic direction moves the action on at a fast pace, but has at times a real sombreness too. The only drawback is that the romantic scenes don’t really register and in the end the whole Isabel/Thomas romance subplot feels tacked-on; as is standard in this kind of movie. In truth the film could do without the romance altogether, but despite its shortcomings the subplot doesn’t hold up the show and since it’s the sole reason for there being any female characters at all it’s probably best not to complain too loudly.
What really lifts Ironclad above the standard of typical B-movie stodge though, is the cast. Even on paper it’s pretty impressive; among the typical-for-this-kind-of film cast we have elder statesmen Brian Cox, Charles Dance and Derek Jacobi. Carrying the action, the more-than-capable Jason Flemyng, Jamie Foreman and James Purefoy and more unexpectedly, there are Kate Mara and Paul Giamatti. The movie is all about the battle between opposites and at one pole we have Paul Giamatti’s superbly florid performance as King John. Flamboyantly bad-tempered, permanently flustered, capricious and just a little unhinged, it’s the bravura performance the movie needs to give it life.
Giamatti – who mostly looks pleasingly ridiculous – manages to breathe a certain authority into the role despite the King’s relative lack of stature and dignity. At the opposing pole is James Purefoy, who embodies quiet dignity and effortless authority as Thomas Marshal. It’s kind of irritating that Purefoy spent so much of his early career cast as smug and supercilious yuppie types, when it turns out that he can silently seethe with fury better than almost anyone and looks good in almost any period costume. It’s not really a dialogue-driven movie, but although Purefoy brings a non-cheesy physicality to the role he is also a good, cerebral actor and even manages to get away with lines like “I fight so you don’t have to” without too much difficulty. Marshal’s whole character is a cliché – a nobly suffering strong man who fights for a God he has no faith in and whose grim and stoical battle-hardened exterior hides hidden depths of pain and suffering – but Purefoy makes him live, and makes him far more sympathetic than the character as written deserves to be. It feels like a missed opportunity that Marshal’s main adversary in the plot is King John’s imposing Danish henchman Tiberius (Vladimir Kulich). It makes sense in action terms, since King John can’t really be killed in combat by a Templar, for historical reasons, robbing the film of the showdown its structure demands – but though Kulich is good, Purefoy and Giamatti are the film’s engine and more scenes between the two could have led to some real acting fireworks; but alas, it’s not that kind of movie.
Among the supporting cast, Brian Cox and Charles Dance are expectedly authoritative, while Derek Jacobi, whose character is marginally more nuanced – he doesn’t like the King but he doesn’t support the rebels – is as meticulous and convincing as always. Kate Mara is pretty good and nicely un-bland even though her role is essentially to coax James Purefoy out of his shell of suffering, but underused Welsh actor Aneurin Barnard steals several scenes as Guy, the squire. Barnard has a somewhat sinister charisma, but despite his oddly baleful glare he’s very likeable as the innocent, battle-wary Guy. Also somewhat underused is Mackenzie Crook as Daniel Marks, who like most of the band of rebels is more a trait (he’s an archer) than a character. That band of warriors is essentially there to be picked off one by one, and although it’s a historical rather than fantasy movie as such, their dynamic resembles nothing so much as the D&D-style Elf/Dwarf/Barbarian/Wizard type of group familiar from ‘80s Wizards of the Lost Kingdom type movies. As such they are all underwritten roles with one or two characteristics each – Jason Flemyng’s Gil Becket is impetuous and unpredictable where Marshal is stoical and reserved, Jamie Foreman’s Jedediah Coteral is crude, Rhys Parry Jones’s Wulfstan is strong – but the performances are distinctive enough to make the characters live, for as long as they need to live.
The movie’s main attraction is, or is supposed to be, a series of action set pieces; siege engines attacking the castle, siege engines on fire, the castle collapsing after being literally undermined, the showdown between Marshal and Tiberius. They are all well-staged, dramatic and appropriately exciting, but overall it’s the film’s pace, its evocative cinematography and the performances that mean that it never becomes dull, even when walls aren’t being demolished or men hacked to pieces. Not all films are intended to be cinematic masterpieces, and it would be misleading to hail Ironclad as some kind of Kurosawa-esque masterpiece. But at the same time, it’s a reminder that there’s no reason at all for the mid-to-low budget genre movie to be tedious Z-grade stodge. For a director with a bit of imagination and an able cast, the limitations of genre film are an opportunity to have fun within a limited palette. That’s what Jonathan English and his crew did with Ironclad and it’s an excellent, unpretentious but not brainless piece of work.
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