Age of Treason

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.

Entertaining movie but many unintentionally funny moments. Reminiscent of Hercules and Xena tv series. Bryan Brown's accent is distracting, especially in the narration. Hunky kickboxer Matthias Hues is fun to watch as Justus. Suspenseful plot. "Gladiator" is much better.

I'm a huge fan of Lindsey Davis' mystery series set in First Century Rome, and was really disappointed by this filmic conflation of several of her early Marcus Didius Falco novels. The primary flaw, which spoils anything good in the movie (and there IS some good stuff here) is the woeful miscasting of Bryan Brown as Falco. I've loved Brown in several other movies, but he isn't the guy for this role. Most especially distressing is his lower-class Aussie accent, which is completely wrong for Falco -- he could never have won the heart of a Senator's daughter talking like this!

It's really a shame, because the Falco series deserves a treatment like what the BBC provided for "I, Claudius." It's that good.

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.

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.