Film Review - Coriolanus
January 26, 2012
Every now and then, visionary filmmakers take on the challenge of contemporizing or reevaluating the illustrious works of William Shakespeare, performing a cinematic blood transfusion of sorts to energize material hundreds of years old. Think Kenneth Branagh’s “Hamlet,” Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet,” and Richard Loncraine’s “Richard III.” Pushing Shakespeare into a bleak battle zone is director/star Ralph Fiennes and “Gladiator” screenwriter John Logan, who inject “Coriolanus” with burning venom, assembling a tempestuous drama of betrayal and cruel authority that breathes fire and takes prisoners, dragging the material kicking and screaming into a modern environment, with pronounced political and societal parallels. The essence of the picture remains with the Bard, the rest carries on with a wrathful charge, generating frustrating distance and intensity, often in the same instant. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com
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