Dir. JOHN McTIERNAN; Wri. WILLIAM WISHER Jr. & WARREN LEWIS; Music. JERRY GOLDSMITH; Starring. ANTONIO BANDERAS, VLADIMIR KULICH, DENNIS STORHØI, TONY CURRAN, DIANE VENORA, DANIEL SOUTHERN, CLIVE RUSSELL, RICHARD BREMMER, SVEN WOLLTER, ANDERS T. ANDERSEN, MARIA BONNEVIE, OMAR SHARIF; R.T. 103 mins; 1999, USA
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: In Dark Ages Europe, reluctant Arab ambassador Ahmad ibn Fadlan (Banderas) encounters a horde of Norsemen holding a funeral for their dead king and is drawn into a quest to answer a call for aid from their homeland, from a community threatened by an ancient, unnameable evil. According to a soothsayer’s prophecy, their only chance of success is for a party of thirteen warriors to go, but one of their number must not be a Norseman, and so, trapped by fate, Ahmad travels far from everything he’s ever known to battle untold horrors and discover the man he’s truly meant to be …
WHY IT’S LOST: Once upon as time, John McTiernan was a very powerful director/producer in Hollywood, helming a string of hit action-packed blockbusters which were (mostly) well received by critics and audiences alike – Last Action Hero notwithstanding, he sure was on a roll with Predator, The Hunt For Red October and TWO Die Hards – but by the late 90s his star power was really waning. 1999 saw two major misfires – this film was accompanied by the clunky remake of The Thomas Crown Affair – begin a string of bad luck that included the truly abysmal Rollerball remake and his final damp squib of a feature, Basic, in 2003, by which time his work was already becoming overshadowed by off-screen legal and financial problems. The 13th Warrior, however, was a troubled project all on its own, from a wildly skyrocketing budget to McTiernan falling out with producer (and author of the original source short story, Eaters of the Dead) Michael Crichton, who eventually went on to seize control and re-edit the film after unfavourable test screenings, and even original composer Graeme Revell was replaced after delivering his finished score. Then came the release itself, where the film was poorly received by most critics and underperformed badly at the box office, landing less than half of the final, bloated budget. Then again, it did open with The Sixth Sense dominating all in cinemas …
WHY YOU SHOULD DISCOVER IT: The thing is, when you watch it, it’s really hard to see WHY it tanked so badly – this is a CRACKING film, a rip-roaring boy’s-own epic adventure of the type they just don’t make anymore, a ghost of a bygone age in more ways than one. It’s liberally steeped in rich period detail and a heady concoction of haunting Old World mysticism and palpable mythic atmosphere, perfectly evoking a living, breathing Dark Age Norse world more than a decade before Vikings first came to air. Essentially a revisionist reworking of the classic Beowulf story, it beautifully evokes the darkness, violence, danger and earthy splendour of the age, and the audience is given a perfect filter through which to discover this seemingly savage pagan world in Ahmad, a civilised, rational intellectual forced to embrace his darker, more primal side in order to survive. Antonio Banderas was riding high at the time, a very bankable star after the massive success of The Mask of Zorro, and he’s perfectly cast here, buckling some impressive swash once things get heavy and calling on his impressive comic talents as his character suffers some major culture clash, but he’s also more than capable of making a potentially superior, arrogant character likeable and relatable, someone we can care about and root for. His Viking co-stars are, for the most part, similarly well-served – some are underused and sketchily drawn, but there’s more than a few strong and truly memorable characters among this Norse “Dirty Dozen”. Vladimir Kulich has become a pretty recognisable character actor over the years (particularly from the likes of Vikings, The Equalizer, Angel and Ironclad), but young warrior king Buliwyf was the role he was born to play, fierce, sharp-witted and quietly charismatic; Scottish character actors Clive Russell and Tony Curran both clearly had the time of their lives playing boorish party boys Helfdane and Weath, while Daniel Southern adds a touch of class as intellectual elite warrior Edgtho, but the film’s biggest scene-stealer is Dennis Storhøi as the mercurial, wisecracking Herger, with whom Ahmad forms an unlikely but pleasingly honest friendship. In my opinion this is as strong as any of McTiernan’s established hits, a heart-pounding actioner packed with rousing battles and heart-in-mouth suspense, while there are some moments of genuinely palpable horror as the ancient threat slowly reveals itself which are as effective as anything delivered in Predator, and it’s extremely powerful and emotionally satisfying, especially in the charged climax. It would have been interesting to hear what Graeme Revell intended for the music (I’ve always enjoyed his work, especially on Pitch Black and the other Riddick films), but what we ultimately got was something truly special all the same – the late Jerry Goldsmith was an undisputed master at scoring epic action, and for me this will always be one of my favourites among his work. Altogether then, this is a spectacular film, certainly a real personal favourite, and one which deserves far more respect and appreciation than it got.
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