The Bromantic Tale of Henry II and Thomas Becket

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Listen my children, and you shall hear the ballad of Becket, a bromance between Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton. O'Toole was king of the bros, spending his days partying, bagging peasant chicks, and bossing around bishops while his servants brought him snacks. His favorite wingman was Burton, who joined him on daily falcon workouts and even helped him with the essential bro tasks of bathing and grooming. They were total BFFS.

The only buzzkill was that the chicks in O'Toole's life who weren't whores were shrews. His mom and wife just sat around in doofy hats, making tapestries and nagging him when they should be greeting him with his slippers and a fresh cocktail. He coped by complaining about how unattractive and useless his wife was. They and their screenwriter seemed to have forgotten how Eleanor left the King of France for O'Toole, giving him sweet lovin', 8 kids, and a hunk of French territory. Or how his mom Matilda had fought tooth and nail to make him king. No matter, there is no room for female agency in this story. Katharine Hepburn will have to fix that another time.

When O'Toole made Burton the Archbishop of Canterbury, the lone-wolf wingman surprisingly took his new job totally seriously. He gave away his best Ed Hardy shirts to some homeless guys and started building a professional wardrobe of archbishop vestments. Sadly, they were not historically accurate, lacking embroidered panels of saints and madonnas. The cloth-of-gold stole with pearls was pretty good, though. You could tell he was serious because his intense Richard Burton gaze happened more often. Also, he really prayed; he didn't just wear flashy crucifixes around his neck.

Then the disrespect started. Anyone who watches Jersey Shore knows this is the greatest violation of the bro code. O'Toole disrespected the Church courts, Burton responded with an epic candle-snuffing excommunication ceremony inspired by re-runs of Survivor. O'Toole disrespected back by threatening to arrest Burton.

Things were getting ugly, so they went to the ultimate bro, the Pope. He talked-a-like-a-this and hung out in Italy with a crew of guidos. From the size of their cardinal robes you could tell they were juicing. Guido Pope got them to compromise, and so there was a poignant reunion horseback riding on the beach. O'Toole was all "I wish I knew how to quit you!" and Burton was all "I wish you would stop disrespecting the Church. Jesus is my bro now." When they got home, O'Toole had a meltdown of Real Housewives proportions, and everyone started to wonder exactly how he "loved" Richard Burton. You know what happened next - some other bros from O'Toole's posse went to the cathedral and slashed up Burton and his shiny vestments. O'Toole did penance, and Guido Pope made Richard Burton/Thomas Becket a saint, thus inspiring many tales of future pilgrimage roadtrips.

So there you have it. It didn't crackle like The Lion in Winter, nor did it inspire like A Man for All Seasons. I think I'll chalk it up the empty dress syndrome that plagues so many inaccurate historical movies.