A trained killer who follows the ways of the ancient Stoics single-handedly takes on a gang of people smugglers in rural England in The Stoic, now available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and other VOD services. It’s nice to see an elite action hero take the time to sketch in his journal in between offing baddies, but this low-budget UK indie ultimately fails to satisfy as either a traditional action movie or as deeper rumination on Stoic philosophy.
Still, writer-director Jon Eckersley managed to put together a reasonably competent film with minimal resources, and filled it with a mildly interesting narrative and even a light sense of dread. The Stoic doesn’t deliver on its central promise, but it could have been worse.
“Man is affected not by events, but by the view he takes of them.” The Stoic starts with a quote from the Enchiridion of Epictetus, misattributed to Seneca, and we’re already on shaky ground. But it’s a core tenet of Stoic philosophy. What view would you take if you’re out on the lake enjoying your pipe, and happen to witness two women being chased through the fields by machine gun-toting mercenaries?
For the titular Stoic, played by Scott Wright, the answer is clear: openly taunt them within firing range until they start hunting you down in the woods one-by-one. The Stoic has but a modest pocket knife to match up against eight men and their assault rifles, but he also has courage, justice, and temperance on his side—as well as amor fati, an embrace of his own inevitable death.
But this Stoic is not just a Ryan Holiday fan with a daily journal. He’s also a member of some weird cult led by a nun he calls Mother (Carol Holt), who torture men until they are ready to send out into the field as trained assassins—or something along those lines. This isn’t Stoicism; it’s John Wick with the subtext as text, and an excuse for the movie to ignore its central theme and go into action mode. As our hero murders men in the swamp with rage in his eyes, we refute the premise: you, sir, are no Stoic.
But he is handy with that pocket knife. As he stalks and kills the mercenaries, he works his way through some British film industry veterans that include Rocci Boy Williams (Wrath of Man), Jason Flemyng (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), who disappears from the film far too soon, and Bruce Payne, who once played a blue-lipped warlock that inhabited Kutná Hora’s Sedlec Ossuary in Dungeons & Dragons.
The Stoic bears the signs of a minimal budget, including a near-total lack of the kind of stuntwork and bloodletting effects that are typical for these kinds of movies; instead of fight scenes, the film hard cuts from guns being drawn to the Stoic standing over the bodies of his victims and slicing off their buttons as a sign of respect. But like the titular hero, the filmmakers manage here with limited resources.
There was an opportunity here to really dig into Stoicisim by making its hero, say, a war veteran and Meditations fan, but the cult stuff separates the film from any sense of reality where the words of Seneca might have real impact. At the film’s climax, our hero’s name is revealed to be Marcus Aurelius, in a sequence intended to be a big reveal that will mean nothing for 90 percent of the audience.
But really, this Stoic is Michael Myers without the mask, a mad killer stalking and killing with little regard for sense or sensibility. We’re supposed to be rooting for him because he’s ostensibly saving two women, but we also get the feeling that, for him, this is just another Saturday night. Patrick Swayze in Road House was a better figurehead for Stoicism.
If you tune into The Stoic expecting the visceral thrills of a typical action-revenge movie, you will not find them here; if you’re a fan of the real Marcus Aurelius, you may be appalled by this representation. The Stoic is competently put together, with some gritty vibes and a decent cast, but it just doesn’t fulfill its core mission.
