In AD 117 the Roman Empire spanned territory from Egypt to Spain and as far as the Black Sea to the East.  In Northern Britain though, the Roman onslaught ground to a halt when it met an elusive enemy whose guerrilla tactics and surprise attacks made dominos of their rigid formations.  These were the savage tribes of the Picts.

Quintus (Michael Fassbender) is the sole survivor of a Pictish raid, the eponymous Centurion.  Son of a Gladiator, Quintus is a proud and passionate warrior, he marches North with General Virilus’ legendary Ninth Legion determined to avenge the slaying of his comrades.  The Ninth’s mission is to rid the land of the Picts and their leader Gorlacon.  But the legion is ambushed, the bulk of its men massacred, and General Virilus captured.  Quintus assumes command and leads a handful of soldiers across the unfamiliar terrain to recover their general and to return to the Roman frontier with their lives…

Neil Marshall has long been fascinated with the idea of telling the story of Hadrian’s Wall.  Having grown up at its Newcastle upon Tyne end and led years of his working life at its Cumbrian conclusion he spent hundreds of hours driving along the road beside the wall wondering what stories it could tell.  When he heard the legend of the Ninth Legion and their mysterious disappearance his writer’s mind began to fill in the gaps and conjure their fate.  The result was Centurion.

Speaking to his intentions and the question of modern parallels Marshall says:

“Primarily I wanted to tell a story about individuals, and it’s about this handful of guys who are fighting their way home.  It’s their story.  So I don’t necessarily want the audience to pick a side and choose what’s right or wrong.  It’s about individuals and you either root for those individuals or you don’t.  It’s much the same as any story really.”

On the page this sounds promising, creditable even.  I had never heard of the Ninth Legion and found the promise of an explanation of their vanishing intriguing.  Producer Robert Jones describes Centurion as a character-based chase movie in the spirit of Apocalypto, Southern Comfort and Last of the Mohicans.  Marshall himself intended something of an homage to the classic John Ford cavalry westerns and there are scenes where that intention is carried out to the letter.  As evidenced by his previous films, Dog Soldiers and The Descent in particular, Neil Marshall is expert in managing the exhilarating, heart stopping thrill of pursuit.  He is also peerless in his ability to create authentic camaraderie in his casts.  His deft, decisive, direction conducts the orchestra of departments flawlessly so that the physical environments of the sets and landscapes feel utterly believable and Centurion is no exception.

The mountains and valleys of Aviemore convey the breathtaking awe of the Scottish landscape in a way that all the pixel power of ILM never could and, while the makeup is excellent, the powder blue tinge of the actors’ skin is an authentic shade of half-frozen actor – Neil Marshall blue!  The hack and slash and chop of sword and axe are readily answered by the 200+ litres of blood Paul Hyett and his effects department splashed over the frozen ground.  The cast are, in the main, strong and Dominic West’s Virilus is particularly good value – a great booming caricature of a beloved general.  They were each called upon to fight, ride and climb in bitter conditions and it is to their credit that all are utterly believable in the hostile environment.  In that regard Centurion maintains perfect suspension of disbelief.  It looks at once of its place and time and thrillingly contemporary, recalling the clear aesthetic voice of Dante Spinotti’s Public Enemies.

Such a terrible pity then, that it’s not very good.

I believe the bones of an excellent story are here in the premise, however somewhere in the journey from page to screen or from film to edit they were lost.  Neil Marshall and his team set out to make an epic pursuit movie yet the plot wanders in a meandering figure of eight before it dares cut to that chase.  The Centurion hook necessitates an otherwise pointless narration which makes for a schizophrenic viewing experience as your loyalties are tossed from individual to band of brothers and back again.  I wonder if the mighty lure of Gladiator money influenced the decision to leave the title singular not plural.  Certainly it explains the tacked-on romance.  It is a pity because it’s such a waste of a jolly good idea.

For the sake of that idea I do think you should see Centurion.  For that reason it is worth it.  Do your best to bear with the first third, try not to snigger at the story of Olga Kurylenko’s Etain or flinch from the comedic expository dialogue and your commitment will pay off.  Beneath the unnecessary hook Neil Marshall has delivered all the elements of an entertaining action adventure.  And it almost works.

Did he fear comparison with the brutal simplicity of his previous work?  Is that why we have to smash through a Mille-feuille of saccharine cliché and plot device before we break through to the battered and bloodied heart?  I hope not.  Neil Marshall is an unusual talent with an undeniable skill for delivering a true white knuckle ride.  Because this film is not really about a Centurion and it’s not about a wall.  It’s about the thrill of battle, the fight for survival, the chase…

Centurion opens in the UK on Friday 23^rd April

“I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars and you. What else do you need to know?“

Public Enemies is Michael Mann’s first venture into true-life territory since 1999′s The Insider. He has long been a master of slick fictionalised crime – his CV is a roll call of criminal capers and cops. The first twenty minutes of Public Enemies is this familiar Mann ““ the man who made Heat, Collateral and Miami Vice is here you think. The screen, the very room filled with slick staccato sights and sounds. It is cool; it looks period but feels contemporary, fast paced; a jail break, a bank heist, bang, bang, rapid-fire images, bang, bang. A car crests a hill with the robbers on the running boards clutching hostages to them, pretty girls, big guns, devil-may-care men; Gangsters. It explodes out of the screen burning with the same white-hot intensity that Mann believes fuelled John Dillinger in the final, fantastical, thirteen months of his life.

Oh. It’s all a little bit style-over-content. The suits are sharp, the cars are fast but you had hoped for a little more, and then”¦the humanity. The heart of Public Enemies is so straightforward and unabashed that it rather creeps up on you. The score helps; Elliot Goldenthal, who had previously scored Heat for Mann, wrings your emotions with subtle efficiency but, in the main, the credit must go to Depp.

Johnny Depp is so much a part of popular consciousness that it’s easy to forget how extraordinarily good he is. He doesn’t so much play John Dillinger as inhabit him, body and soul. He moves differently ““ this is not Captain Jack loping and swooning, this man is coiled tight and ready to spring at you even in repose, even as his eyes tell another tale. There is knowing and calculation in this haunted man, awareness of time spinning counter-clockwise and running out, away from him. When hatcheck girl Billie Frechette asks him what he wants his reply is simple:

“I want everything”¦right now!”

Marion Cotillard’s Billie and her naked trust in Dillinger bring out the man beneath the layers of legend. John Dillinger may be the Robin Hood of American folklore today but he was also a young man who died without reaching his 32nd birthday. He loved movies, and the final moments of a bespectacled Depp sitting in The Biograph cinema with images of Clark Gable as a Dillinger-esque gangster dancing across the lenses will undoubtedly secure him a statuette at next years Oscars. He plays a life squeezed into a baker’s dozen months with such conviction that you are captivated by his spiral.

Depp is ably matched by co-star Christian Bale whose role in Public Enemies is rather more significant than Johnny-biased trailers may have you believe. His portrayal of G-man Melvin Purvis is all stoic determination but the parallels between his journey and Dillinger’s punctuate as his conscience and values are sacrificed in the pursuit of Public Enemy Number One. He too has ghosts, but his ghosts are of what is yet to be. When Frechette is brutalised in an interrogation and he swoops into the room to save her he may as easily be Dillinger himself as an agent of Hoover. To read what became of Purvis in the closing credits is poignant because Bale so eloquently communicates the price the man paid. Cotillard’s Billie is equally multi-faceted, she believes that Dillinger will always come for her because he needs her to believe him, but she knows each time they say goodbye may be the last.

Cinematographer Dante Spinotti has collaborated with Michael Mann on five other films, but it is his work on LA Confidential that I was most reminded of here. The combination of Mann’s utter insistence on authenticity and physical locations, and the aesthetic powers of Spinotti create a sense of place and time that feels immediate, even as it is undeniably “˜then’. Public Enemies works, beyond the style and attention to detail, because it is intimate ““ these lives were important not because they are the stuff of legend but because they were lived. Once upon a time banks fell, businesses crumbled and a man stood up to say I’m not going to take this any more.

As the gang fall away one by one, ruined by the reckless glee of Baby Face Nelson (a magnificently manic Stephen Graham) and the dogged pursuit of Melvin Purvis, you fall in step with Dillinger. On his long walk towards the end you are at his side and you hope what must be will not be. When it comes it is a sucker punch that winds you and lingers.

“Die how you lived, all of a sudden.“

Manhattan Melodrama

Public Enemies is out on DVD in the UK today