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So why did they change the title for Region 1 to "The Duel?" Personally, I think that "The
Even Chance" is a more effective title. It's a reccuring theme in the story, certainly
moreso than duelling, and works on more levels. I suppose the marketing people thought "The
Duel" would be more dynamic, or something. ::shrug:: Whatever.
The two main nits I would like to pick with this one are the pronunciation of lieutenant,
and the cannon recoil -- or lack thereof, I should say. Now the lieutenant thing I've gone
over in a rant on the subject, so I'll spare you a repeat of
it. Sufficed to say, it irritates me. The recoilless cannon are visually bothersome. I
keep expecting to see them leaping backwards, and the ships to be rocking with the recoil
during the battle scenes, and it just never happens. I swear, I've shot .22 pistols with
more recoil than those cannon. I think the scene in which it bothers me the most, though,
is the 'Horatio and the Papillon recsue the Indi' scene, where Our Hero is running
from cannon to cannon sticking his face behind each one. I flinch every time,
waiting for one of them to smash into that prominent nose of his.
Speaking of visually jarring things, who thought the 'Horatio's view as he plummets to the
icy water below' shot was a good idea? The camera speed was completely different from the
rest of the film and it did not blend at all. The movement was rather odd, as well;
I'm left wondering what it was they thought they were accomplishing with that one, and
concluding that it was a mistake. One really ought not jar one's audience out of the
universe one has set up by inserting such disparate visuals for no apparent reason.
You're probably wondering about now if there was anything I did like about it. Of
course there is; it's just easier to pick out the things that irritate, so I tend to start
with them.
Jack Simpson was a wonderfully evil character. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. As much
as I love a bad guy I can root for, it's nice just to have someone to hate once in a while.
One has a tendancy to shout at Horatio to just shoot the bastard (or push him back in the
drink, etc...) periodically, but of course the poor lamb never listens -- lucky for him,
Pellew does. The interactions between him and Archie are deliciously fraught, which brings
me to...
Beautiful, brutalised Archie. As a self-avowed hurt/comfort junkie, I'm naturally drawn to
Archie. He's about as fertile a canon field for h/c as a person can get without making the
nature of his abuse explicit. It's left nicely buried in the subtext, leaving fan authors
to choose their own interpretation, anywhere from emotional abuse and terrible beatings, to
rape. Those familiar with my Enterprise fiction will know that rape as the hurt
component of my h/c is something of a sore tooth or scab for me; I keep coming back to it,
picking, picking... Naturally, that's what I tend to see when I look at Archie's
'relationship' with Jack, though I certainly conceed that there are other possiblities
there.
Moving on, I must admit to having some difficulty coming to terms with suicidal Horatio. I
can't see how a beating and some brow-beating could so quickly diminish such a
self-sufficent, self-assured individual as Horatio. It seems to me that something else must
have been going on.
This is where I turn to Archie. The boys were friends. Simpson knew this (as evidenced by
his own comment to Horatio in the final duel), and the man was nasty-minded enough to use
that to his advantage. I conjecture that he used Archie, already cowed and easily
manipulated, to break the rebellious Horatio. Abuse a man's friend, make sure he knows it's
happening, then keep him from doing anything to stop it by threatening the same to him and
that worse will happen to the friend should he speak of it to anyone, and you make him
helpless. For a person like Horatio, nothing could be worse than knowing a friend suffers
and that he is helpless to stop it.
Whatever Clayton said, I think Horatio knew perfectly well what Simpson was capable of. Why
else inisist that someone ought to stand up to Simpson, yet be patently unwilling to do so
himself? His challenge was designed, not truly as a chance to stop Simpson (though some
small hope may have glimmered), but as a method of suicide. A passive-agressive way to go
about it, sure, but rather clever, really. Horatio has a chance of killing his and Archie's
tormentor, but should he fail, he'll die as he wished, retaining his honour.
Anyway, enough of my conjecture and speculation. A few closing comments on other bits that
I particularily liked. As a former Latin student myself, I found Keene's "ablative
absolute" line to be utterly hysterical (I'm thinking of making it my signature line for
e-mail). It never fails to induce a little snort of laughter. The look on Horatio's face
in the "fish for it" scene was just priceless. What a snotty little son of a bitch! One
can understand why the French captain hit him -- it was a provocative look, arrogant as
hell. If I were on the recieving end of it, I'd want to wipe it off his face, too. As it
was, though, I was cheering Horatio on all the way. The man's a smart-ass, but a loveable
one, nonetheless. Must be that limpid umber gaze, so ernest.
~RB