Masterful
by Mark Netter

Is it fair to call a movie brave that dares to be square? Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World wears its classicism proudly. It is a straightforward story, a well-contained historical epic, and a rousing old-fashioned entertainment. In a time when big budget means an increasingly grueling competition to make the viewer's eyes pop out with slickly imagined computer-generated worlds and characters, the special effects here (and director Peter Weir claims that no frame went untouched) are in the service of something that traditional Hollywood blockbusters used to do best: convincingly immerse our eyes and ears in an historical time and place to which we have no other access.

As one who has yet to read a page of Patrick O'Brian, lauded author of the novel series from which this movie is drawn, I don't have the same bone to pick as I might with, say, a raw bastardization of a Dr. Seuss classic. Neither did this reviewer expect to have much interest in an early 19th-century naval military yarn. But, perhaps to the consternation of the most die-hard O'Brian fans, I found myself fully drawn into the world of the HMS Surprise, and cheering out loud from the first cannon shots of the climax.

Australia-born filmmaker Peter Weir has had one of the more intriguing Hollywood careers. He made his name with impeccably crafted movies that has ambiguous or troubling endings, from the unsolved mystery of the disappearance of two girls in the true-story based Picnic at Hanging Rock to the seminal Mel Gibson picture Gallipoli, the latter based on a shameful incident from his country's military past. While these were borderline art-house fare firmly rooted in Australian culture, the filmmaking values -- solid camera placement, faultless casting, rigorous but unforced editing -- earmarked Weir perhaps inevitably for a move to Hollywood features, including the well-regarded Witness, a police detective genre refresher.

With Master and Commander, Weir delivers another type of genre film, one that harkens back to a golden age of solid storytelling and bold heroics, without the falsely pumped-up bravado of so many "major" pictures these days. We follow the men of the Surprise (also flaunting box office convention, the number of shots with a woman in it can be counted on one hand) as they get their asses kicked by a French ship of superior speed and gunnery, then play cat 'n' mouse through the south Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, culminating in a fine opportunity for payback.

Any remotely experienced moviegoer is unlikely to be surprised by the twists and turns of the story, but they are pleasurable all the same, since we care about the characters and the stakes they have assumed. Russell Crowe plays Admiral James Aubrey, captain of the ship, with little irony and much full-blooded vigor. It is hard to imagine another contemporary actor assuming the role without feeling too modern, or falling into a star turn. He is well-complimented by Paul Bettany as the humanistic and scientific Dr. Stephen Maturin, a character that, I gather, actually plays the larger role over the course of the novels.

The rest of the cast is filled with spot-on character actors and fresh young faces, the latter rather surprising, as we learn that boys barely old enough to shave were manning and training on these ships, the start of their lifetime professions. The class system on board reflects that of England at the time, and the codes of the film are heavily invested in how these two classes, the officers (some of whom are mere lads) and the crew interact. It is in this area, particularly the code of leadership, where Master and Commander rules the waves. The best approximation for this sort of pleasure might be the Captain Kirk-era Star Trek episodes, where the underlying theme is always the true nature of leadership. In both cases we grapple alongside a captain responsible for so many lives, in a remote part of the universe, with superior orders that will undoubtedly put those lives in harm's way.

As the ups and downs of the story work themselves out, Aubrey is forced to choose an individual's life or death, decide rewards and punishments, and maintain order where chaos might just as easily reign. If part of why we go to the movies is instructional, how to act (given the chance) in our own lives, the high point must be Aubrey's capsule dissertation on how a captain should run a ship: respect and discipline must be maintained, but one shouldn't be a tyrant. When the time comes for his final motivational speech to the troops, after we have come to know the salty life with all its robust advantages (plenty of fresh air and muscle work) and harrowing disadvantages (trauma surgery without anesthetic, showers only when it rains), Crowe takes it as far as it will go without quite spilling over the top. With an almost palpable glee, he asks his men, "Do you want your children singing the Marseillaise?" And while that song brings a tear to the eye in Casablanca, the mention here is the opening curtain to a highly satisfying, action-packed cannon and sword battle, fulfilling the sort of promise one used to get buying a ticket for an Errol Flynn movie.

This is a flick that begs to be seen on the big screen, with tremendous shot detail that will surely be lost on television, and a true feel for the vastness of the wide open seas. Weir chose to use miniatures rather than 3D digital models for the ships, and the word is that some of the models, created at Peter Jackson's WETA shop, were up to 25 feet long. The movie opens as dawn is about to break, and takes a few waking minutes to establish the rhythm of the sea and ship before all hell breaks loose. At midpoint we are treated to gorgeous location photography in the Galapagos Islands, a first visit by a major motion picture team. Then in the waning moments before credits roll, Weir pulls all the way back to a God's eye view and, for a few precious beats, pulls out the soundtrack music, so only the lulling rhythm of the ocean fills the theater, a sound now loaded by all we have experienced.

Ultimately, Master and Commander is middlebrow in the best sense of the word, more gripping and convincing than Gladiator (to which it has been compared), seasoned with populist humor and anchored by a heroic but human-scaled protagonist who himself learns something new along the way. The shooting is as classical as can be. As with a well-televised sporting event, you always see everyone you need to just at that right moment, in the heat of battle, when you want to know what they're doing. And never once was this viewer reminded that we were really back in the same 20th Century Fox water tank in Baja that housed the Titanic set.

So here's to Peter Weir, Russell Crowe, and rest of the cast and crew, for crafting the type of broad-audience movie that perhaps has never been easy, but seems in perilous short supply today. It pleases the eye without puncturing it, tells a coherent story without insulting the intelligence, and creates an immersive world that might actually lead some audience members to crack a book. To call Master and Commander art might be a stretch (ask again in twenty years, and tread gently around the O'Brian purists) but to call it competent is to do it an injustice. This is grand Hollywood entertainment, and within that venerable tradition has the briny scent of a new classic itself.

©2003 Mark Netter
CineScene