Gladiator team try romantic comedy

Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott, who last teamed up for Crowe's Oscar-winning turn in Gladiator, are entering unfamiliar territory in Scott's A Good Year, a romantic comedy which had its world premiere this week at the Toronto International Film Festival.

In the film, Crowe trades his sword and sandals for briefcase and tie as he takes on the role of a cocky London bond trader who inherits a vineyard estate in France's Provence region. Initially, he plans to sell the property but then slowly falls in love with it.

Crowe said part of the appeal of the movie was working again with Scott, who directed Crowe in the role of a revenge-seeking Roman general in Gladiator.

"There's a lot of laughs in Gladiator," he said playfully when asked about his lack of past comedic roles. "It wasn't sold that way, but that's why people went back to see it, because you chop somebody's head off the right way, it's funny."

He said the role in A Good Year appealed to him in part because he "liked the idea of exploring the Anglo-Franco dynamic", as his character gradually sheds the trappings of his high-stress London life for the simpler pleasures of Provence.

"I've got a lot of English friends and French friends, and when they're together it's one thing, but when they're separate there's another whole dialogue. They tend to tell me a little bit more of the truth because I'm from Australia and New Zealand and outside of that argument."

Scott conceived the idea for the story with Peter Mayle, who has written several books on his experiences living in Provence, one of which, A Year in Provence, was made into a TV series.

Scott said the film was new territory for a director who never stayed in one subject area for long. "I love to go into genres I haven't been before," he said.

Over his career, Scott has successfully tackled science fiction with the classics Alien and Blade Runner, and action-adventure with Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, which chronicled a 1993 firefight in which 18 Americans were killed battling a Somali warlord.

But he received lukewarm receptions for films such as the Demi Moore dramatic vehicle GI Jane, the Silence of the Lambs sequel Hannibal and the period piece Kingdom of Heaven.

Scott has a reputation of not being an actor's director but he clearly has good chemistry with Crowe, with whom he is currently filming American Gangster, about a drug lord who smuggles heroin into Harlem in the 1970s by hiding the drugs in the coffins of American soldiers being brought back from Vietnam.

Scott said he was also writing a film that would deal with modern political and religious issues in the Middle East.

"It is so chaotic, and so fascinating, that we don't learn by history at all. In fact we've become even more ignorant about history," he said.

Crowe said he did not to expect to do more comedy roles in the future.

"Am I planning to do something similar? Probably not," he said.

"Do I want to work in France again? Do I want to work in Provence again with [Scott]?

"Yes, so tell all your friends to go and see the movie so we can do another Good Year.

- REUTERS