FilmBlather.com

"A man's character is his fate."

A beloved teacher at a prestigious prep school asks a student who has just lost an academic competition why he cheated. The answer is honest, direct and unapologetic: "Why not?"

The Emperor's Club, the ambitious movie by Michael Hoffman (A Midsummer Night's Dream) is a personal portrait so glowing that you'd swear it's "based on a true story." It's not -- it couldn't be, not with a story this contrived or a script this ridiculous. Oh, it spouts platitudes with the best of them -- we learn about honor, and integrity, and principles -- but it has nothing to show for itself, not even a protagonist who demonstrates those qualities in any interesting way. As Dead Poets Society proved some years back, it is significantly harder to make a coherent movie than it is to make one that tells us how to live our lives.

On a cursory note, the title makes no sense. There are many emperors mentioned throughout the course of the movie, but not a solitary one has a club; if the phrase refers to the best and the brightest who attend St. Benedict's School for Boys, shouldn't it have read The Emperors' Club? Are they worried that potential audiences will be turned off by a plural possessive?

But I digress. The movie tells the story of William Hundert (Kevin Kline), an impassioned, highly-regarded ancient history teacher at the aforementioned institution. He is known for having the unique talent to reach his students, and also for his enthusiastic moderation of St. Benedict's yearly "Mr. Julius Caesar" competition that tests students on Roman and Greek history and makes a show of crowning the winner.

The latest school year begins uneventfully, with the normal collection of intelligent, ambitious, mischievous young men storming the dorms and classrooms. Then a belated limo heralds the arrival of a new student: Sedgewick Bell (Emile Hirsch), the overprivileged son of an important senator. Sedgewick is obviously a smart kid, but he's dirt-spoiled and stubborn, ignoring Mr. Hundert when he tells him to, essentially, shut up and study, and getting the other students involved in illicit activities. After Hundert has a talk with Senator Bell, Sedgewick does, in fact, buckle down and focus his efforts on the upcoming competition. The rest of the film concerns a development that the trailer reveals, but I won't.

There's a problem right off the bat, and it's a whopper. William Hundert, whom the script wants to make sweet love to, is a bit of an ass: he's redundant, quibbling, arrogant and, frankly, boring. At least the Robin Williams character in Dead Poets Society had a sense of humor. When Sedgewick showed up and started disturbing Hundert's routine, I immediately identified with the troublemaker, and the prospect of the teacher "getting through" to him, wasn't necessarily a desirable one.

The movie doesn't portray him as an impeccable embodiment of the values he preaches, which would have been wise but for the fact that he never admits to any sins, continuing to espouse "dignity and character," maintaining moral superiority over those around him without acknowledging his own missteps. That, as you may have guessed, does nothing to make either the protagonist or the movie more likable.

The acting enlivens matters. Kline does his best with the pompous script, probably perfectly cast as the saintly educator. Hirsch, who earned a name for himself in the amazing The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, is a tremendous physical actor: watch his face in the scene where Kline threatens to call his father. There's also a convincing supporting performance from Jesse Eisenberg as one of Sedgewick's friends and Hundert's top students; the kid has a feel for convincing dialogue.

The Emperor's Club should be commended, I suppose, for daring to present a role model in an industry filled with anti-heroes. The problem is that I wouldn't really want my kids to grow up like him.