Napoleon Review: The Only Thing Explosive About Ridley Scott’s War Epic Is When The Cannons Fire

“I follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great and Ceasar” — with punchlines like that, I did perhaps expect Ridley Scott to serve up a modern cinematic classic of the 2020s with his big budget war epic Napoleon. But after watching this toothless depiction that lacked depth & intrigue with a plotline that doesn’t quite know what to do with itself, or where to go, I was left rather disappointed with the most memorable aspect of the evening being the dinner that I had at Arbab after the film.

On a day which hinted at being slightly cold in the early hours of the morning in late November with the onset of winter in Bombay fleetingly and deceitfully beguiling not just me but all Mumbaikars this year, I made the journey to BKC’s Jio World Drive via a ghastly approach route to take the comparatively newer BKC flyover, that leads up to the more recently developed bustling commercial sector of the city to watch this Ridely Scott-crafted war film/bio-pic on the first day of its release — “First day first show” — as they say in Bombay.

It’s been a much hotter winter than others in the recent past here in Mumbai, and despite the time being past 6pm, I was still feeling the heat in my shirt & shorts almost mirroring what Napoleon was feeling in the letter he writes…