Tonight on Amazon: Forget Gladiator, here’s Russell Crowe’s masterpiece!

Master & Commander follows the (mis)adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey, commanding officer of the HMS Surprise, who is suddenly attacked by a rambunctious and nearly indestructible French frigate off the coast of Brazil at the height of the Napoleonic Wars.

Seeing his ship badly damaged and the loss of much of his crew, Aubrey is torn between his thirst for revenge and fleeing an enemy whose firepower overwhelms him. He then sets out on a hellish chase across oceans to capture his adversary. This mission can bring him glory and success or destroy him and his crew…

Spectacular and intimate

From the Splendid River series of novels written by the late Patrick O’Brian, Peter Weir has created a masterpiece with this film. An extraordinary maritime adventure film, both spectacular and intimate, with exemplary and visually sublime staging (an Oscar in the works), starring two fabulous actors.

Russell Crowe, who undoubtedly finds his best role here, and the great Paul Bettany as his childhood friend and ship’s surgeon, humanist and naturalist Dr. Stephen Maturin. For as long as we can remember, we haven’t seen such crazy sea battles since the heyday of corsair and pirate movies.

Box office failure

Released a polite and complete indifference – to say the least – on December 31, 2003 with us, torpedoes. de facto Its career in theaters, a huge failure at the worldwide box office with over $211 million on a $150 million budget, cannot be said to be master and commander More than worthy of a serious reassessment.

A setback that will take Peter Weir several years to recover from. His next film, Les Chemins de la liberté, won’t be released here until 2011… so enjoy this extraordinary film without any moderation, as its failure in theaters almost jeopardized any chance of seeing a sequel; Especially after Fox was bought by Disney.