Corrected entry: The inconsistency occurs in the scene where Marcus confronts and kills the chief of the Seal People, thus recapturing the Eagle. As he is about to kill the chief, he asks him where he got his father's ring. Up to that point, the only way Marcus could communicate with the British tribes was if Esca interpreted for him. This was indicated in the film by the fact that the Romans spoke English (representing Latin) and the Britons spoke another language, which was subtitled. So as the film sets it up, Marcus and the chief do not speak a common language. Yet in this instance, the chief apparently understands Marcus's question with no problems. And yet, when he gives his answer taunting Marcus about his father's cowardice, he speaks his own language (subtitled) which he knows Marcus does not speak. Indeed, we know Marcus did not understand what he said, as he asks Esca several times afterwards what the chief said about his father. So when did the chief suddenly become able to understand Marcus's language, and if he can actually speak it, why not reply in it when taunting him?
The Eagle (2011)
1 corrected entry
Directed by: Kevin Macdonald
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell
Factual error: While Hadrian's Wall itself is accurately depicted, its use and meaning to the Romans is not. The Wall did not demarcate a line north of which no Romans soldier would venture out of fear of the locals. The area north of the wall was too sparsely populated to produce a serious threat to a sizable Roman force and the Romans would have regularly patrolled there. In fact just two years after the events in the movie are set, the Romans constructed the Antonine Wall 60 miles north of Hadrian's Wall, running approximately between today's Glasgow and Edinburgh. The plot more closely matches the experience of the Romans in Germania in AD9 when three Roman legions were wiped out in the Teutoburg Forest. The Romans went to great lengths to recover the Eagles lost in this defeat and did so through a combination of diplomacy and military successes.
Marcus Aquila: He's not a slave. And he knows more about honor and freedom than you'll ever know.
Trivia: The director was not able to find a suitable Scottish Gaelic-speaking actor to play the boy of the tribe of Britons, so he cast Thomas Henry who is a native speaker of Irish Gaelic from Belfast.
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Correction: These are questions, not mistakes. But to answer them; the chief could understand Marcus' language, but not necessarily speak it. My ex wife is Russian, and while I can understand some of what she says when speaking Russian, I can't speak enough Russian myself to make myself understood. The chief could easily have learned the basics of Marcus' language from the other Romans who settled in the region.
rswarrior