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Back in the times when the Greeks were still besieging Troy: While
the Greeks heroes Agamemnon (Mario Petri), Ulysses (Piero Lulli), Achilles
(Gordon Mitchell) & his right hand man Patroclus (Ennio Girolami) are out
pillaging adjoining villages - & take loveslaves home with them - Troy's
general Hector (Jacques Bergerac) is attempting an attack on the Greeks
battlefleet ... & almost succeeds, too, if it wasn't for the fact that
Achilles returns just in time ... you see, an oracle has told Hector that
he will one day be slain by Achilles, the (almost) invincible demi-god,
while another oracle has told Achilles that he will die immediately after
he has killed Hector ... The Trojans retreat, & Greek leader
Agamemnon decides to celebrate this with some fun & games ... but a
priest shows up to spoil the fun, as Agamemnon has kidnapped his daughter
Kriseide (Eleonora Bianchi) in the latest pillage & made her his love
slave - despite the fact that Kriseide was the high priestess of Apollo
... & when Agamemnon refuses to set her free, Apollo sends death &
pestilence to the Greeks.
In an ensuing emergency meeting, Achilles begs Agamemnon to set Kriseide
free to calm the angry god, to which Agamemnon agrees only under the
condition that Achilles gives him his loveslave Briseis (Gloria Milland)
in exchange ... Furiously, Achilles refuses & storms off, but the
next day, in all secrecy, Ulysses sets Kriseide free anyways ... which
drives even more of a rift between Achilles & Agamemnon ... which
Hector presumes to be the perfect time to attack the Greeks - & he is
right too, since Agamemnon refuses to interfere in the war Greeks against
Trojans or letting his men interfere ... but it doesn't give him quite the
satisfaction it should give him, actually he gets roaringly drunk to numb
out his guilty conscience until he passes out from too much alcohol. Patroclus,
unable to see his compatriots fall, puts on Achilles' armour & leads
his army into battle ... which drives off the Trojans, naturally, but
Hector decides to fight it out withthe man he thinks to be Achilles ...
& learns he is only Patroclus only after he has killed him. Now
Agamemnon is bent on avenge his best friend & right hand man &
challenges Hector to a duel in the open ... a challenge which Hector quite
foolishly accepts, since he knows its outcome (he doesn't know about the
oracle that promised Achilles' death, too, though, which makes his
accepting the challenge all the more stupid). & indeed, Hector is
killed in the duel. Initially, Achilles plans to mutilate Hector's
corpse to make his revenge really count, but Hector's father Priamos
(Fosco Giachetti) persuades him to hand over the corpse to prove he is
noble in mind. Then, when everybody thinks Achilles is going to die to
make good the promise of the oracle, the film is over ... Italian
sword & sandal movie (or peplum, as they are often called) full of
love, violence, death & deceit ... that makes very little of its
story. No imagination was put into the direction (despite a source
material full of gods & demigods, fancy costumes & exotic
settings), the storytelling is dull & episodic where linear narration
would be needed, many scenes are way too talky when merely stating the
obvious, the film takes itself dead serious, & it is way too long
(running 110 minutes) - which makes it pretty much a waste of time.
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