Barbarossa Siege Lord

Title: Barbarossa Siege Lord (15)

Year: 2009

Running Time: 139 minutes

Director: Renzo Martinelli

Cast: Rutger Hauer (Federico Barbarossa), Raz Degan (Alberto Da Giussano), F Murray Abraham (Siniscalco Barozzi)

Notes: Also known as Sword Of War.

Rating: 3

Thoughts:   As Emperor Barbarossa seeks to conquer and build a bigger Empire, one man from Milan challenges him at the head of the Company Of Death.

This is an interesting period of history as the mighty Barbarossa gets checked in his advance. Sadly, this isn't an interesting film, certainly not for the first couple of hours.

It meanders endlessly and whilst the shots look quite nice there isn't much from the cast. Hauer looks mean and brutal, and Abraham plays his parts well, but the rest of the characters barely come alive.

The alternative title is probably a better one as there isn't an overwhelming amount of Barbarossa in the film. Instead, this is mostly told from the Milanese perspective, an interesting take.

But too much time is invested in irrelevant side stories. In short, the film is just flabby.

Their approach to the tale, to tell it from the Milanese side but then use Italian actors and then overdub them in English, sort of sums up lots of what is wrong here. It's just all so poorly thought through.