The Eagle

The Eagle (12A) 114 minutes 2011

The Eagle has landed at the Greenwich Picturehouse...

It stands for elegance, power and freedom. It is the defining emblem of the United States of America and it has inspired countless generations of soldiers. The Eagle is the latest offering from Director Kevin (The Last King of Scotland), Macdonald, a fictional account of the true story of the disappearance of a Roman Legion in Britain in the second century AD.

In 120AD, 5,000 Roman soldiers, intent on extending their conquest of Britain further north, marched into a misty Caledonian glen and were never seen again. The loss of the Legion's 5,000 men, but more importantly its standard, a golden eagle, brought shame on Rome, the Legion's Commander and his family. Twenty years later, his son Marcus Aquila (Channing Tatum) takes a posting in Britain to retrieve the lost eagle and with it, his father's honour.

Interestingly, Macdonald resists the temptation to turn the movie into a battle or slaughter-fest preferring instead to focus on the relationship between Marcus and Esca (Jamie "Billy Elliot" Bell), a young slave whose life Marcus saves. Initially born out of obligation, their relationship grudgingly blossoms from respect to admiration and ultimately friendship. Macdonald manages this relationship with sensitivity avoiding the pitfalls of Hollywood sentimentality - Esca's silence often as powerful as his words. With virtually no women to distract them, the relationship quickly deepens and transitions when the master-slave relationship reverses.

Bell and Tatum take time to get going, their chemistry laboured and forced, both less than comfortable in their respective roles. Both are miscast - too young for their roles - and yet both do their best; Tatum's softly spoken and yet firm, command somehow appropriate and Bell's (forever Billy Elliot and yet now rugged and mature) relentless but quiet sense of honour, powerful and compelling. The rest of the cast play second fiddle with Donald Sutherland's pleasant little cameo as Tatum's uncle unfortunately offset by Mark Strong's soldier-gone-native's bizarre American accent.

The scenery is magnificent - mist spattered forests to cloud enshrouded mountains- and the photography (Oscar winner Anthony Dod Mantle) even better - the Scottish highlands bleak and desolate as never before. The film's fascination is clearly the clash of cultures although surprisingly little is made of the inability of technologically superior invading forces to overwhelm notionally inferior but patriotic, local resistance. Sound familiar? Sadly, remarkably little appears to have changed in 2,000 years. 6/10

Dick Morgan
March 2011