Writer/director Helgeland wastes no time in setting up a straightforward and unoriginal storyline (much more so than his previous L.A.Confidential) of a squire who takes the place of his dead master to compete on the jousting circuit. As he is not of noble birth, a prerequisite of participating, he invents a title and lineage which is pretty flimsy but luckily he runs into an imaginative soul, one Geoffrey Chaucer, who is wandering naked around France and has the talent to forge proof of noble birth. He becomes an instant hit with the crowds (mainly thanks to Chaucer�s heralding skills) and also a talented jouster, but he won�t be satisfied until he defeats the arrogant Lord Aldemar who has been called away to command his army in the south.
Heath Ledger is good in the lead role, but most of the scenes are swept from under him by a tight supporting cast. Paul Bettany is great as the silver-tongued, gambling addict Chaucer and Mark Addy and Alan Tudyk make for excellent sidekicks. Debuting DJ-turned actor Shannon Sossamon also fits into the cast well, although Laura Fraser is not kept too busy as the blacksmith who designs a new lightweight armour for jousting.
One of the main gimmicks in the advertising for A Knight�s Tale was a Luhrmann-lite use of modern rock music in a medieval setting. What�s interesting however is that this trick is fairly quickly abandoned in the face of an entertaining story which stands alone and doesn�t need this modernist twist. So there is a bit of crowd singing Queen, a courtly dance which segues into Bowie and not much else; in fact the whole idea could have been scrapped and you would still have a very worthwhile comedy adventure. |
