This is not Madness ...this is 300. Review on 300 Movie

"This is not Madness .This is Sparta" roared Spartan King Leonidas(Gerard Butler) before kicking King Xerxes(Rodrigo Santoro)'s messenger(Peter Mensah) into the deep well. in Frank Miller's second movie adaptation "300"

The direction, cinematography and Actors. Everything is so immaculate and impeccable in its deliverables.mostly extreme and strikingly beautiful yet real….and perhaps even better sometimes than its comic book drawings, which it borrows frame to frame.

"300" narrates the courage and valor showed by a mere 300 Spartans against the mighty Persian army which boasted to be a million strong.

The narration by David Wenham as DILOS, the one eyed Spartan Soldier is jarring and raw at times and sometimes, even seems to be putting up too much of folk-lorish accent and modulation, and Gerard Butler's Australian accent seems to be a bit out of place, but the sepia tone, and superb cinematography covers up all possible flaws that this film exudes, if any.

To me, the beauty of the movie lies in the raw ness in which this movie has been delivered. Blood, gore, severed heads, hands and torso. Well, it seems to take the viewer right in middle of action. Dismembered hands, headless torsos, streaking bloody(not an abuse but actual in its description) decapitated heads, and plummeting streams of blooding spurting out from severed limbs, seems to make even the toughest "guts of steel” to throw up.

But then, and even then, this movie has all the makings of a classic cinema in it .Larger than Life characters, with their own principles and validities, prejudices and vulnerabilities.

SPARTANS are supposed to be the direct descendants of Hercules himself, but the story shows the moral conflict between immoral advances and Demi god reverence to duty, valor, pride, honor, strength of character, tales of valor and intricacies of exploitation, kingship and duties against kinship and politics.

It's not just another cliché portrayal of bravemanship and comraderie but of the true and often benign depiction of what happens to army men in today's scenario where valour and vanity is raped in the name of politics and administration. Its a realistic depiction of a culture steeped in fantasy and legends, and of people who live by their valour of a time seemingly gone against a realistic, conniving and "metro sexual" beings who holds the reins of the budding stemming political grit who's prominence grows stronger and influential in the eyes of the "council" who in turn seems to hold the power to even reduce the KINGship to a mere memory if it is willed to do so.

A story with a twist and it effectively shows how a king can be reduced to a mere soldier and royalty made a pawn in the hands of barbarous politics. Some people speculated how closely it resembled the US IRAQ showdown, but sidestepping that discussion, I would like to divert the attention to the manner in which the movie manages to show how treachery, betrayal, exploitation, which in this context is in-fact sexploitation ruled the psyche of men long before and after valour and bravery has been sacrificed in the price of a few "worthless" gold coins.

Often compared to the 1962 Rudolph Mate's " The 300 Spartans" which revolved around the same depiction of how Spartan king Leonidas led an extremely small army of Greek Soldiers(300 of them being his personal body guards from Sparta) to hold off an invading Persian army more than 20 times as large. The actual heroism of those who stood(and ultimately died) with Leonidas helped shape the course of Western Civilization, allowing the Greek city states time to organize an army which repelled the Persians, "300" stands out as a cinematographical masterpiece which uses CG and intellect at the right proportions to create a magical aura of a era where every SPARTAN used their supreme coordination to fighting as a unit honed to perfection from childhood.

There are countless scenes that can be recalled which sets this movie apart from another time and era piece APOCALYPTO which vied for their own screen presence .The fight with the wild beasts, the dark grim spatial footage of the Persian ships in water, the SPARTAN warriors looking at the raging sea.it was monumentous and gigantic.

Also commendable was the brilliant though brief portrayal of sheer villainy of the PERSIAN KING WARLORD King Xerxes, played to perfection by Rodrigo Santoro. The feminine yet formidable presence of the bald brazen semi clad demonic tall and massive king Xerxes, with the baritone booming sinister voice, the brazen bronze skin against the shining golden shimmer of the gold ornaments that ornate his bald head and chiseled body, the black kohl lined eyes, the black nail polish, the ornate lips yet piercing eyes and huge gold cheek rings, him standing tall and huge and menacing in front of King Leonidas, rather standing and looming behind Leonidas .It’s another such silent yet overwhelming screen presence.

I could write pages, and the movie is worth writing a thousand pages and yet a moment of forgetting oneself to immerse in the battlefield where a million strong was waylaid for a brief moment of historical legend by mere 300 men who believed that they were the one who will not surrender, ill not walk down and die rather than lay down weapons.

300 is not about history, but of confidence courage, faith and for believing in one's duty and perseverance and excellence in doing your duty and living up to the legend of being the descendants of Hercules .and above all it talks about the infallible human spirit of man, and how it always rises at times of crisis to make a Man more than just a man.to become a legend himself.