Two great roisterers of British acting from the 50s and 60s and 70s, Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton, give this potent star power - both have incredible voices but differing styles which mean they team well: glowering, watchful soulful Burton vs the more flamboyant, heightened campness of O'Toole.
This story is a bromance which goes sour - Henry II (O'Toole) and Becket (Burton) are in love with each other, so much so that Henry appoints Becket to be Archbishop of Canterbury. However Becket then actually finds God (Burton handles this difficult transformation well and I went with it - the soulful thing) and causes trouble: Henry reacts like a wounded lover, and indeed complains that Becket never loved Henry the way Henry loved him. To establish everyone's hetero credentials there are a few scenes of Henry bonking women (although they always seem to be women that Becket wants to bonk) but when you've got a film where the women are either sex objects or shrews (eg Henry's mother and wife) and there's a beautiful young man who adores Becket, then it's hard not to read gay subtext into the action.
A lot of scenes feel repetitive and O'Toole and Burton revert to their stock tricks (yelling and barking). But at heart it has a strong story with a solid emotional dilemma and there's good support from John Gielgud.
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