At the Movies - 'The Emperor's Club'

The Associated Press

While they were casting about for a title for "The Emperor's Club," they might have considered "Goodbye, Mr. Cicero," "To Caesar, With Love" or "Dead Orators Society." (The film originally was titled "The Palace Thief," after the Ethan Canin short story it's based on.)

"The Emperor's Club," starring Kevin Kline as a devoted classics teacher at a top prep school, does add an interesting twist to the mentor-molding-young-minds genre. Yet most of the film feels familiar to the point of banality, a class reunion rehashing uplifting scenarios from a dozen past schoolroom dramas.

What keeps the film generally afloat is a graceful, dignified performance by Kline, who manages a mix of quiet joy and melancholic disillusionment within the confines of a very reserved role.

Drawing on his background as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, director Michael Hoffman ("One Fine Day," "Restoration"), nicely captures the discipline and flavor of classical education.

But it's hard to watch "The Emperor's Club" without constantly recalling other school flicks. The steadying hand of a teacher smoothing defiant minds is reminiscent of "To Sir, With Love." Kline's enduring classicist echoes the hero of "Goodbye, Mr. Chips." His delight in teaching, along with the autumnal Northeast setting, resembles "Dead Poets Society."

And the killer is, when "Emperor's Club" conjures such comparisons, you're recollecting better films.

Most of the action occurs in the 1970s as William Hundert (Kline), assistant headmaster at St. Benedict's school, immerses his current crop of young minds in the wisdom of the ancient world.

Hundert's students are pretty eager to please, until underachieving rebel Sedgewick Bell (Emile Hirsch of last summer's "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys"), son of a U.S. senator, arrives at St. Benedict's.

Sedgewick's a challenge for Hundert, an instigator for classmates -- standard stuff for teacher-student stories. Predictably, Sedgewick comes around under Hundert's tutelage, applying his sharp mind and taking steps toward developing the sort of honorable character his teacher so admires in the leaders of ancient Greece and Rome.

"The Emperor's Club" strikes its one note of originality in an act of favoritism by Hundert involving Sedgewick and the school's annual "Julius Caesar" contest, in which three top students test their knowledge of the classical world, the winner earning the emperor's laurels.

Hundert winds up getting a hurtful lesson that some folks never learn, then has his wound salted 25 years later in a bizarre re-enactment of the Julius Caesar competition.

He ultimately discovers that for years, he hasn't been able to see the strong forest he planted for the one stunted sapling he couldn't nurture. A nice though obvious message.

And while Hundert's self-recrimination over playing favorites is a departure from the blamelessly upright nature of the typical movie mentor, it's too small a variation to lift "The Emperor's Club" out of the shadow of its forerunners.

Likewise, a couple of subplots -- one regarding Hundert's attachment to a female colleague (Embeth Davidtz) who brightens his monkish existence, the other involving his aspiration to become headmaster and his collegial relations with a fellow teacher (Rob Morrow) -- are underdeveloped and feel tacked on to add meat to a bony tale.

"The Emperor's Club," a Universal release, is rated PG-13 for some sexual content. Running time: 109 minutes.

Two stars out of four.