To start off the new year of 2022, I'm recommending a film, which brought Sir Ridley Scott into the spotlight. To me Ridley Scott saved movies for me last year, for many reasons that past two years where a bit of a s**t show especially when it came to movies that contain nothing but superhero films, remakes and nothing but mindless crap. And along comes Ridley Scott, to bring us such great films like The Last Duel and House of Gucci for which were amazing to watch in the movie theaters furthermore worth every bit of penny. So there's no other reasons in explaining as to why Scott is worth recommendation, starting in the month of January not to mention going to recommend a huge some of his great work this year as well so, don't feel it’s a coincidence in me review some of Ridley Scott's work. So let’s get the New Year started with The Duellists.
The films centers on two French soldiers under Napoleon, Armand d'Hubert (Keith Carradine) and Gabriel Feraud (Harvey Keitel). Both men have a distinct hatred for each other and proceeded to challenge one another to a duel through the course of Napoleon's reign. Now both men are Generals and Napoleon's reign is coming to an end, the two men challenge each other to one final duel that will change the fate of each man's life on earth.
For a movie that has a budget of $900,000 dollars in the works along with absolutely no battle sequences furthermore no presence of Napoleon, I have to say that Scott made everything work to his advantage when it came to the story, casting and locations. Yes, the film is set during Napoleon's reign in France, but the story itself is about two men who have such different aspects to life but yet so how find themselves being challenged to a duel during their Emperor's reign, Carradine's character is a soldier who has no coral with Harvey Keitel's character but yet always has to fight him to withhold his own honor but also fight to stay alive. And that's what makes both of these actors so amazing to watch is that Carradine is trying so desperately to stay away but knows he has to be ready to face Keitel no matter what, while I have to say Harvey Keitel is more interesting for many reasons is that his character has that obsession to almost duel anyone whom he crosses and its fascinating as to why a man has such a grudge over one man through the course of almost sixteen years and its why you even want to duel someone with the possible chance that you may die but yet still want to duel it out for which I still find fascinating. With such great actors in Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel, I sadly have to talk more about more about Ridley Scott because well this was his first movie at the age of 41 and yet he's still making movies so in all honesty I consider him a hero of some sorts. Whenever I hear about a filmmaker making their first film for a little amount of money and still make in amazing movie out of it I always think back at movies like Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi for 7,000 dollars and George Romero's original Night of the Living dead for 125,000 dollars for which now looking at that I don't believe that but I'll take Wikipedia's word for it. Now 900 grand now sure that's nothing but doing that back in 1977 when this film was made that was very little money when you’re doing a period piece like this and the fact that Scott was able to shoot the film with such very little of what he had to work with was truly awesome, I mean with 900 grand he didn't just make a small budget film but made a one of a kind masterpiece and the fact that we never needed any huge battle sequences and just let the visuals speak for themselves is incredible moreover the fact that you see different locations and Scott whose great at visual storytelling you honestly don't need any of the battle sequences and just use the settings, the environments and backgrounds as the centerpiece for the whole movie there really no need for it at all. I love the fact that they take the time to make these sword fights as real as possible moreover when you watch them it really looks like they were trying to make these fights as serious and staying true to the sword fighting style of fencing where it's not always about charging at your opponents it’s more like a game of chess you have to see what your opponent does before you make your move and if there's one slight misstep then no more soup for you, if you catch my drift. If I had to pick my favorite duel in the movie is when both men charge on horseback and we have a sequence of Carradine getting ready to charge but he begins to have this slight glimpse of fear that he might not make it and the way Ridley did it is just amazing on so many levels. So, like I said before what better way to start off the new year of 2022 than saying thank you to Ridley Scott who gave us such great films last year furthermore saved the movies at least from one to many superhero movies and also remakes as well. In closing I would highly recommend this terrific and beautiful movie to watch, from start to finish.
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