A roaming Roman takes the sea route

Set in the early fifth century, when the Roman Empire was crumbling - a victim of corruption, Christianity and attacking Goths - The Voyage Home is a slow-going chronicle of one man's idealistic odyssey. Rutillo Namaziano, played by Elia Schilton with a look of chronic consternation, is a high-ranking bureaucrat who makes the trip home to Gaul, stopping to meet the emperor in hiding and hoping to restore the system of law and justice that made his empire great.

Directed by Claudio Bondi, and shot along lovely Mediterranean coastlines, the film has an odd static quality about it: major plot turns, such as a shipwreck at sea, happen off-camera; the sex scenes with various ladies (Rutillo can't help himself, apparently) are perfunctory, and only the talk seems to linger on - and on.

Bondi was clearly influenced by the great Italian realists, Pasolini and Rossellini, but one gets the feeling the director was equally affected by the limits of his own production budget.

At points, The Voyage Home, with its clippety-cloppy horses and burly bands of heathens, feels like a Monty Python parody. And while Rutillo makes his journey by sea because, we're told, the roads are rife with robbers and Goths, he dispatches a horseman to scout the roads ahead. Said confrere seems to have less trouble making the trip than Rutillo - at the mercy of Mother Nature and an extortionary rent-a-boat captain - does.

Contact movie critic Steven Rea

at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.

The Voyage Home

** 1/2 (out of four stars)

Produced by Alessandro Verdecchi, written by Claudio Bondi and Alessandro Ricci, directed by Bondi. With Elia Schilton, Rodolfo Corsato and Caterina Deregibus. In Italian with subtitles.

Running time: 1 hour, 40 mins.

Parent's guide: No MPAA rating (violence, sex, nudity, adult themes)

Playing at: Roxy Theater