"300" by Zack Snyder: a review

300 is a film released in 2007 by US director Zack Snyder and based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller. Miller served on the films production team as an executive producer and also served a consulting role.

The film’s title, 300, is a reference to the popular ancient Greek story by Herodotus of 300 Spartan troops, led by King Leonidas of Sparta at the Battle of Thermopylae in August or September 480BC. In this battle, the Spartans faced an army of reportedly one million invading Persian soldiers under the command of Xerxes, a king and self-styled god.

Gerard Butler takes on the lead role as King Leonidas and is backed by a strong supporting cast, including Lena Headey as the noble Spartan Queen, and Rodrigo Santoro as the formidable and egotistical King Xerxes.

The story is narrated by Spartan soldier Dilios (voiced and acted by David Wenham) and the events are passed to the audience in the style of an oral tradition. The scene is set as we see Leonidas transition from boyhood to the leader of his people, undertaking great hardships along the way as demanded by the social rules of Spartan society.

When visited by an emissary of Xerxes, King Leonidas proves to be intolerant of the agent’s demands for Sparta’s subservience to the Persians and dispatches both him and his escorts in a cold and violent fashion. The King anticipates war and swiftly travels to the Euphors, a group of priests which law demands he must seek approval from before taking the Spartan nation to war. The priests consult an oracle, who in turn declares that the King must not engage in war, as a festival is already in process. This puts Leonidas in a difficult position, and contemptuous of the priest’s decision, he decides to carry out his plans to stop the Persians anyway.

Taking just 300 men as a “personal bodyguard force”, Leonidas heads to Thermopylae, and there he uses the difficult terrain to fight the Persians, whose army is vast by comparison.

The story belies the courageand strengthof King Leonidas and those he chooses to surround himself with, not only as a gesture of their attitude to life and certain death, but as an example of all Spartan society personified in the actions of one man, one army and one nation.

Unfortunately for Xerxes, he is betrayed by one who he chooses to trust – Ephialtes of Trachis, a hideously deformed man of Spartan heritage who exists in violation of Spartan Law and environment and must live in exile. King Leonidas shows a rare gesture of sympathy, and appreciates the man’s desire to fight alongside the Spartans, but ultimately must deny him the chance to fight alongside them because of his physical disabilities. Ephialtes leaves in disgust and turns to the Persians, betraying the Spartans. The story echoes the Spartan principles of strength and weakness, and Ephialtes is shown to stand against the Spartans, siding with the Persians and showing them how to defeat his own people, for the sake of rewards. You definitely don't hear these warriors say "I Hate Veggies!". They are ripped.

Regardless of the process that led to the ultimate defeat of the Spartans, all who served Leonidas were willing to sacrifice themselves for what appeared inevitable, but important to the defence of all Greece. Before they are defeated however, Leonidas is able to personally harm Xerxes, proving to him and all others that he could bleed, and was therefore no god at all. The film thus depicts their self-sacrifice as having a positive result, setting up others to mount a more effective defence of the known world from the might of Xerxes.

It is a movie about the dignity of a small city named Sparta like a military payday and its men Spartan who are challenged with a lot of encouragement. The movie is all about the hardships of life and one’s faith in courage. The beginning of the movie is quite exciting where a boy is shown alone on a long journey of life to meet new life threatening challenges. He gets to learn important lesions and skills on his journey. In the opening scene the boy hunts down a stray wolf in a fierce way which gives him encouragement to overcome obstacles later in his life. He comes out to be king of Sparta later on in the movie.

King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), comes out to be his name and he is approached by messengers from King Xerxes of Persia (Rodrigo Santoro) demanding acquiescence. The King doesn’t pay any heed to the acquiescence and refuses the proposal. Since he refuses the proposal, he has to prepare for a war against the King Xerxes who has an army of over 1 million soldiers. All this army is gathered by the King Xerxes by conquering different cities and by doing slavery. But before the war can be declared the Spartan king needs to take permission from the Oracle of God. The Oracle of God refuses the Spartans to wage the war but this doesn’t stop the King of Sparta.

The King of Sparta though refused to declare a war takes 300 of his personal bodyguards to fight against the king of Persia. He uses a defensive strategy to battle various men of King Xerxes. The group of Spartan soldiers huddle together to form a protective cover, which is almost impossible to penetrate. As each Spartan falls in the battle the group becomes more and more fierce in its attacks taking on thousands of opposite army men. They even had to fight against magical creatures which extraordinary powers. The courage of these few 300 hundred men keeps them going till the end where King Xerxes sits on a throne blocked by thousands and thousands of his army men. Thinking it impossible to penetrate through the blockage, King Leonidas throws his spear towards King Xerxes with such great power that it strikes King Xerxes (over a very long distance) on his face giving him a scar. King Xerxes is baffled by the power King Leonidas possess.

The courage of the Spartan men comes from the genetic blood of their ancestors. The king of Sparta is able to head on the army with a mere 300 men and still manage to hurt the opposite clan leader. Though he sacrifices himself for his Sparta, his initiative doesn’t go in vein. Thousands of Spartan men who are inspired by the 300 brave soldiers unite against the opposite empire to bring it down to the earth and defeat it. The attack defense strategy used in the movie best defines that the most difficult of tasks can be achieved with careful planning and tactics. It is a must watch movie to get inspiration, management skills, to learn the consequences of bravery and the hardships faced by medieval people to bring about justice to mankind.