Age of Treason

Bryan Brown's Australian accent almost completely ruined this film for me. I could easily see this movie as being worthy of a viewing on Mystery Science Theater 3000 just for that alone. At the very least Brown could've taken speech lessons to hide his accent. At best, someone else should've been cast in the role. By using Brown, accent and all, only seems to suggest the makers of this movie really didn't care.

It was inevitable that someone should try to make a movie out of Lindsay Davis's Falco novel, which is one of the most original and witty comic-thriller series around currently, but it is a shame that this one fails so badly to convey the humourous detective-noir cynicism of Falco, or the rich supporting cast of characters that Davis employs so well. The visual effects are very good, and Rome looks great, and Brown - accent aside - is a suitable Falco, hardbitten, yet softhearted, but the plot is a mish-mash, drawing elements from the first three Davis novels, and combining them with a new subplot involving Falco owning a gladiator slave, who is forced into a duel to the death with his she-gladiator lover, and another involving a religious cult, resulting in a badly garbled story and a feeble ending. Davis's books would make an excellent series of films, or even a TV series, but the writers will need to do better than this.

This is apparently based on a series of mystery novels about a private eye in ancient Rome (I can't imagine!), but comes across as a convoluted pilot episode for TOGA-PARTY MURDER, SHE WROTE. Still, it's entertaining in a goofy, bad-taste sort of way with it's sex cult and gladiator games being the highlight. Flagrantly Aussie Bryan Brown and Aryan bodybuilder Matthias Hues make quite a pair! Hokey dokey.

Watching Age of Treason on the now defunct Saudi Aramco TV channel 3 while working in Bahrain almost ten years ago I fell in love with it and the characters. There are some top English–speaking movie and TV actors in the cast that those who are familiar with British cinema may well recognise. I'm glad I had the foresight to tape record it as it seems impossible to get hold of a commercial VHS or DVD version.

My enjoyment of this little known movie (I have never seen it screened on TV since) prompted me to buy several of the Lindsay Davis novels in the Falco series a year ago while in Montreal to read on holiday in Cuba and at a Heathrow airport bookstall on the way back to Greece. I have not actually read the novel on which The Age of Treason TV movie is based (could it be Body in The Bath House?). The movie is very much in Lindsay Davis' style. I expected a comedy not an historically accurate account of Roman history in Vespasian's time.And that's exactly what I got, not as zany, totally out to lunch and silly as Carry on Cleo or A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) so the fact that the huge marble head of an emperor carted about by slaves at various times in the movie is that of Constantine the Great born several centuries after the Vespasian era doesn't bother me. I also enjoyed the recent - and rather more though not entirely accurate-HBO-BBC Rome series and the vintage 1975 I Claudius ( Robert Graves books and the 1976 BBC 12 episode low-budget but excellent production). I am not ignorant of Roman History as I studied Latin and Roman history for several years at school.

This is pure entertainment and therefore one should on look for historic accuracy. Bryan Brown is a hilarious comedian and I never mind his Australian accent in Age of Treason, it was just right for the racy kind of person living on his wits that Brown hwas portraying, maybe a Bronx accent would have done as well. Most of the other actors sported posh British public school ones (a minor but not fatal failing of the I Claudius series), except Niobe the bath-house slave who was pure Brixton cockney played to a tee by that charming but nowadays gracefully aging actress Sophie Okenedo. What would one have instead? Modern Sicilian Marlon Brando style? It would be absurd. I any case nobody really knows what kind of accents Romans had in early imperial days and how they would sound in Latin (use of which would have required cumbersome and pointless sub-titles). I haven't laughed at a comedy movie so much since viewing Danny Kayes' The Court Jester at a London theatre in 1955. This is a gem and I review it at least once a year when I'm feeling blue.

There are not too many films which sweep across time to snare a bit of History and attempt a serious comedy. Then again, this film " The Age of Treason " may have started out as far fetched comedy but as we view it, should be taken seriously. Whatever, the beginning, the story is quite interesting, cohesive and most of all, entertaining. The star of the film is none other than Bryan Brown playing a 1st Century Private Investigator, named Marcus Falco. OK, so there wasn't such an occupation in the 1st century, but who cares, the movie works. Like a modern private Eye, Falco has a difficult time holding onto his money, that is until one of his clients gives him a enormous Gladitor named Justus, (Matthias Hues) in exchange for a fee. Always looking for work, Falco and his friend are to learn who murdered the brother of his employer. In a day and age where it is not wise to ask questions, especially about the nobility or the powerful, Falco nevertheless seeks out the culprit. His investigation will take him into the secret chambers of the Vestal Virgins, the dark blood pits of the gladiatorial area and even into the Palace of the Emperor Vespasian (Anthony Valentine). Wheather he will ever return to his lower income dwelling alive, is not assured, by any means. Still it is his line of work and for an off the beaten path type of movie, it works indeed and I predict it will become a rare Classic in its own right. ****