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You could be fooled into believing by the opening few minutes of Those About to Die that it will be presented through the perspective of a single character named Tenax, played by Iwan Rheon. You could also be fooled into believing by the show’s marketing that Anthony Hopkins will play a major role in it. Neither of these assumptions would be true, because not five minutes have passed and the new period drama series has already introduced around a dozen different characters, and has allowed Hopkins — bless his bank balance — to exit stage left before the main plot even kicks in.
Set in Ancient Rome, Those About to Die is primarily written by Saving Private Ryan’s Robert Rodat, and partially directed by disaster artist Roland Emmerich, who remains best known for films such as The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, and 2012. It’s epic, sprawling, and clearly ambitious enough to consider itself a Game of Thrones competitor, but it isn’t nearly as engaging as it needed to be. Those About to Die suffers from a problem of plenty — there are too many parallel plot lines slicing each other’s throats for your attention, and it’s so overpopulated that might as well have been set in modern-day Dhaka.
A still from Those About to Die.
Our would-be protagonist Tenax is a scrappy young man who operates Rome’s most flourishing gambling den, where the bloodthirsty (and deeply bored) citizens hedge bets on gladiatorial duels and chariot races. Elsewhere, Emperor Vespasian (Hopkins), is putting together a succession plan in place before his impending death. Vying for his throne are his two sons — the stoic Titus (Tom Hughes), and the scheming Domitian (Jojo Macari). These are just two of the show’s half-a-dozen storylines, which also involve a tough-as-nails mother attempting to rescue her two daughters from slavery, a North African man selected to compete in gladiatorial battles, and Vespasian’s rivals, who want to assert their own authority in the event of his demise.
As if this weren’t enough, the show also finds time for background stuff, like a brewing riot over food grain, and something to do with horses. It is humanly impossible to keep a track of it all, and Those About to Die isn’t interested in making things a bit more streamlined for the audience’s convenience. The story doesn’t swim from scene to scene, it stumbles. Often, the effect is jarring enough for it to seem like the editors simply gave up trying to make sense of it all, and made the cardinal error of allowing the same character to go from one emotional extreme to the other without an appropriate transition.
Having been left with no choice, entirely because of its own mistakes, the show turns to exposition when the drama dissipates. But despite borrowing so shamelessly from the likes of better programmes such as Game of Thrones, Rome, Spartacus, and even a little bit of Succession, Those About to Die can’t help but feel like a pale imitation. In addition to its frankly overwhelming cast, there aren’t enough differentiating factors at play here to set the characters apart from each other. It’s entirely possible for you to confuse the star charioteer Scorpus for somebody else, and so on.
It takes around four episodes — there are 10 in total — for you to get your bearings, but only just. By then, however, so much has already happened that the mere idea of trying to catch up begins to feel like an unplanned history exam. Those About to Die is a clumsily made show, and the shortcomings in the writing are only amplified by its shockingly poor visuals. Unlike Spartacus, which capitalised on the then-recent success of 300 to present a highly stylised portrait of Ancient Rome, thereby masking any budget constraints that it might have had to deal with, Those About to Die looks AI-generated even though it’s going for a degree of authenticity.
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A still from Those About to Die.
Some of the green screen work here is remarkably poor, especially in the scenes set in the grand stadium. The backgrounds are all computer-generated, of course, but they look more like something out of a PlayStation 2 era video game than a show that could actually be considered an aperitif ahead of Gladiator II. Heck, it would feel positively ancient even if it had been released in the lead-up to the first Gladiator movie, which is now nearly a quarter-century old. It’s one thing to have sloppy CGI, but it’s another thing altogether to insist on showcasing it. They also seem to have build a Heeramandi-scale set for the series, but it feels just as artificial. Where is the grime? Where is the squalor?
But the show’s biggest crime is just how dispassionate it is. It neither commits to full-blown camp, nor does it adopt a grave tone. Left neither here nor there, you’re left to wonder if the gratuitous nudity and the extreme gore is meant to be chuckled at, or if it’s supposed to add a layer of authenticity. The palace intrigue is ploddingly paced, the chariot races aren’t exactly exciting, and you can barely tell who’s who in the gladiatorial duels. Overlong, overcomplicated, and often overwhelming, Those About to Die is dead on arrival.
Those About to Die
Cast – Anthony Hopkins, Iwan Rheon, Jojo Macari, Tom Hughes, Dimitri Leonidas, Gabriella Pession, Sara Martins-Court
Rating – 1.5/5
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