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It\u2019s 1812 in the winter hell of Russia. Thousands of French troops (and their allies) are making an agonizing retreat toward Poland, the victims of weather more than their opposing forces. (Though the Tsar\u2019s army has certainly done its damage.) The leader of these beleaguered men, Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix<\/strong>), walks among them. \u201cWe\u2019re winning!\u201d he says. Lol.<\/p>\n Ridley Scott<\/strong>\u2019s Napoleon<\/em> (in theaters November 22) is a study of such stubbornness, perhaps particularly of the male variety. The film, written by David Scarpa<\/strong>, takes one of the most studied figures in history and turns him into an avatar of a ruinous human impulse: the unyielding pursuit of more renown, more glory, more power. Megalomaniacs like Napoleon have emerged throughout our species\u2019s timeline, laying waste to so much around them and, eventually, to themselves. Perhaps Scott and Scarpa see some pertinence there, some relevance to our own era. Is, say, Donald Trump<\/strong> a Napoleonic figure, short fingers swapped in for a general diminutiveness? Is he any number of the other strong men who have recently risen to power over the last decade or so? Maybe.<\/p>\n Though the jokes about Napoleon\u2019s height are sparing, there is plenty of other comedy in the film. Napoleon<\/em>\u2019s version of this infamous and strangely revered emperor is a ridiculous, petulant figure\u2014not quite to the \u201cterribly vexed\u201d extremes of Phoenix\u2019s character in Scott\u2019s Gladiator<\/em>, but certainly in the same family. Phoenix has always been good at depicting this kind of pathetic tyranny, deftly (and swiftly) shifting from bratty, toothless insouciance to genuine menace. The actor seems to get both the joke and the seriousness of the film, though I wish Scott were better at communicating that tone to the audience.<\/p>\n