Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World | Review

Russell Crowe is rock solid in this year’s best adventure film.

When the heads at 20th Century Fox, Miramax Films and Universal Pictures balked at a summer date and pushed this film back until November, it was perhaps to get away from the stigma of the dreadful summer blockbuster slate which would have steered a clear course into a head-on collision with Johnny Depp’s adventure at sea. Thankfully, this is the sort of heavyweight production that demarks itself not from the typical swashbuckling adventure that one would easily forget but by drenching the mood in the kind of tension which was last witnessed in the German war film Das Boot.

Peter Weir’s epic is based on a composite of two Patrick O’Brien’s novels, thus the long film title, and focuses on the human sacrifice from men, and to my surprise young boys stuck at sea. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World offers up a Russell Crowe L.A. Confidential in top form who dominates the screen with his powerfully drilling performance hanging from the ships ropes and carrying out his commands against the hectic waves and cannonball attacks. He shares the bill with the grunts, the smells and bloodied spirits from the HMS Surprise crew who thankfully get the same screen time as the Oscar-winning actor. This adventure quickly sets sail into this tense, and unequal battle between a faceless enemy of the red, white, and blue flag versus a crew of men willing to give their lives not necessarily for a King or a Queen but for a Captain Jack. The film digs more into the personal battles and the mutiny within the ship and explores the relationship between two men whose heroics are the thing of which legends are made of. After playing together in A Beautiful Mind actor Paul Bettany Dogville who has more a thing for rare insects and investigating the inner workings attributes of all species, plays the ship’s doctor and a somewhat supportive, yet opposing force to the Captain which provides the screenplay with a couple of head-butting and then shut-up and make-up moments.

While the film does contain a couple of sappy moments which are less sappy than the conventional films, in all, it is the faithful reconstruction of the historic context that adds additional value to the film. Some of the best moments come in Russell Boyd’s photography that gives us an abundance of shots inside the violent storm and final crazy battle which for anyone who liked the rock-the-boat feeling in Perfect Storm will enjoy this one even more. Thankfully, the CGI gets mixed up with these segments and therefore is hardly noticeable and doesn’t intrude with the better parts in the narrative leaving the viewer with the splendor of the Galapagos Islands to admire, the detailed setting of the ship and the kind of mise-en-scene where costumes and every other element feels researched to precision.

Weir’s newest is not his best, but Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is one of the rare big budget productions worth seeing this year, the question is which of the two Captain Jacks will get an Oscar?

Rating 3.5 stars