The Man in the Iron Mask 1997, Rated PG-13

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Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, et al.

In The Man in the Iron Mask, Leonardo DiCaprio stars as two twin brothers, Louis and Philippe, both born to the queen of France. The king, not wanting to have his country torn apart by a series of succession wars after his death, sends the younger brother, Philippe, to live in the country with another family, never informing them of Philippe's royal bloodline, raising Louis as the sole heir to the throne. On his deathbed though, the king informs the queen and Louis what he has done with Philippe. Louis, being the level-headed kind of king that epitomized the late Renaissance Era in France, sends his soldiers to find Philippe, and orders them to lock Philippe in a dungeon with an iron mask covering his face. Six years later, with Louis' arrogance and self-serving attitudes keeping the country on the verge of rioting, John Malkovich, Jeremy Irons, and Gerard Depardieu (the three musketeers) step up to interchange the brothers as king; the warm-hearted Philippe taking over for the Gargamel like Louis.

If there was one element of this production that truly bothered me, it was writer/director/producer Wallace's decision not to have his five lead actors speak with French accents (or in French, but that is a different matter entirely). Depardieu is from France, yes, but co-stars Irons, Malkovich, DiCaprio, and Gabriel Bryne, share a far more annoying trait: they are not. Born in Britain, Illinois, California, and Ireland respectively, the decidedly French tale of The Three Musketeers takes on a decidedly different feel. It's one thing for The Goodman Theater's A Christmas Carol to look for one child from each continent when casting the Crachet family, because those actors actually bother to learn to talk with similar British accents, and, in the end, all manage to sound like one another.

Normally production elements such as these don't bother me--Kevin Costner's lack of an accent in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves didn't dampen my guarded enthusiasm of that film--but The Man in the Iron Mask was a completely different situation. Set in 17th century France, with magnificent, outdoor location settings, well crafted interior sets, and lavish clothing designs that reflected the French obsession with lace, Malkovich's screaming to Irons in his American 'no accent' that he will not back down from anyone instantly brought me back to Malkovich's screaming to Clint Eastwood that he was smart in In the Line of Fire, a story set some 300 years and 3000 miles away from The Man in the Iron Mask. Just as there are etiquette coaches available to help teach actors how people of a certain time period walked and carried themselves, there are dialogue coaches available to have actors grasp historical dialects, which Wallace, for some unknown reason, chose not to employ.

Coming in with a running time of 132 minutes, The Man in the Iron Mask isn't that terribly long of a film, but feels longer because of Wallace's choice to leave in several weaker sub-plots and unorthodox occurrences like Depardieu's attempt to hang himself naked. That, and I wondered why the hell Wallace thought anyone, and I include even the French in this distinction, would want to see Gerard's naked ass.

The overall sense of this film is very stylish and professional, but there isn't much cohesive plot material to keep the film from being anything above average. The phrase "style over substance" wasn't meant to be a personal code of belief, but apparently it is with Wallace.