One of the things you’ll learn from Kevin Kline’s new film, The Emperor’s Club, is that it’s really okay for middle-aged men to cry at the drop of a hat in pub­lic. Their man­hood will not be ques­tioned. It’s not a corny script inven­tion; this stuff hap­pens in real life. Tears freely flow like a hur­ri­cane pum­mel­ing the Louisiana coun­try­side and you may be left ask­ing your­self, “What in the hell are they cry­ing for?” By the end of it I was cry­ing too… out of boredom.

The nor­mally invig­o­rat­ing Kevin Kline plays William Hun­dert, a by-the-book pro­fes­sor of Clas­sics at St. Bene­dicts School for Boys. Lec­tures focus on the works of Aris­to­tle, Socrates and other ancient writ­ers and philoso­phers. Inter­est­ing when dis­cussing schol­arly top­ics, Hun­dert is pri­vately dull. Unmar­ried and lonely, he rows daily on the lake near the school for exer­cise. He is engag­ing in class yet dull and dis­tant in per­sonal rela­tion­ships and he seems to think that that’s just fine. Kline, I sup­pose, given the script, plays Hun­dert expertly here, but the man is so life­less that it seems that Kline just phones in the role of a zom­bie. It’s a pity because he’s a great actor and could have made Hundert’s dull char­ac­ter far more interesting.

Hun­dert hosts a yearly con­test at St. Bene­dicts’ known as “The Mr. Julius Cae­sar” con­test. The top Clas­sics stu­dents at the school square off in a Jeopardy!-like set­ting answer­ing minu­tia regard­ing the ancient world. The film’s con­flict arises when one of the con­tes­tants attempts to cheat and Hun­dert catches him in the act. It will become a life­long obses­sion of the cheater to rec­tify his blem­ished record through any aca­d­e­mic means necessary.

T his film is sup­posed to answer the big ques­tions like, “should a man be allowed to suc­ceed through dis­hon­esty?” but it came off as preachy and aloof. Why should we care about William Hun­dert? His char­ac­ter seems con­ceited and self right­eous. Is it rea­son enough to care about what hap­pens to Hun­dert sim­ply because he’s an hon­est man? And if I don’t what does that say about me as a per­son? Does that make me a dis­hon­est schmuck or just crit­i­cal of this film? Should I even attempt to care since the film makes even that so dif­fi­cult to do?

Kline, who’s work I’ve admired going on 15 years, does not shine in this film. The role of Hun­dert seems like a role that Oscar-whore Kevin Spacey would have con­sid­ered and then declined with a sneer. “There just isn’t much to work with,” he might say, and strangely enough I would agree with him. What passes for sub­stance here is lit­tle more than grown men cry­ing about lost oppor­tu­ni­ties and their inno­cent days of school. Kline’s per­for­mance, and the whole film for that mat­ter seem more suited to the likes of a movie-of-the-week on a second-rate net­work rather than a fea­ture film.