`Troy" is the big Hollywood summer blockbuster movie opening Friday.

Since it's based on one of my favorite books, "The Iliad," composed 2,800 years ago by the blind poet Homer and the foundation of Western literature, I wanted to see the picture.

Unfortunately, the pretty and pouty actor, Brad Pitt, is playing the hero Achilles. They may as well have cast Danny DeVito as Agamemnon, king of men.

"You won't see Troy because Brad Pitt is in it?" asked a friend, who's the wife of a pilot who despises Brad Pitt.

"I know your problem," she said. "You guys are jealous. And Brad Pitt doesn't pout."

Achilles could pout too. But while pouting, he'd throw a spear through a chariot, through the metal of his opponent's helmet, and pin his enemy by the jawbone into the dirt before the walls of Troy.

Let's say he did not pout in the Brad Pitt-Jennifer Anniston fashion.

Thinking about Achilles as Brad Pitt is almost as difficult as considering Leonardo DiCaprio playing a pretty and pouty Alexander the Great.

Brad Pitt might be a nice fellow. But millions of people who've never read "The Iliad" will have Brad Pitt seared into their minds. Innocent folk like the young pilot.

"I just told my husband about this great action movie, with fighting and battles and how he loves those movies and how we have to see it when it opens on Friday," she said.

"He wasn't enthusiastic. I said, `Honey, you love action movies,' trying to convince him to see it. And you know what he said?"

What?

"He said, `LIAR! LIAR! All you want to do is see Brad Pitt! LIAR!' Brad Pitt this and Brad Pitt that. He hates Brad Pitt."

She paused for a moment.

"It's true," she said. "For me, it's all about Brad Pitt, and he's gorgeous. I don't care what my husband says. We're going to see Brad Pitt."

He's too pouty.

"Who cares?" she said. "He's Brad Pitt. And we're going."

I hung up the phone and thought about the end of Western civilization while eating a takeout gyros plate at my desk in the darkness.

For an antidote, I called one of the leading classics professors in the world, a fellow who happens to teach at the University of Chicago: James M. Redfield.

He is a great Chicago White Sox fan. He's also the author of "Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector," published by Duke University Press.

His book explains the tragedy of Hector, the doomed and honorable older brother of Paris, a narcissistic scoundrel who steals the beautiful Helen from her husband and begins the great Trojan War.

On page 116 of his book, Redfield captures that world by writing, "The Homeric culture ... is a `shame culture.' The heroes do not distinguish personal morality from conformity, in a world where `what people will say' is the most reliable guide to right and wrong, the two are practically identical."

We moderns are indifferent to such shame. We congratulate the shamed with book and movie deals. But in Achilles' day, the fear of how they might be remembered molded them.

So in the right picture, the role of the noble Hector could have been one of the great roles in film.

But in "Troy," Hector is played by the guy who starred in the film "Hulk."

I had hoped Redfield would condemn "Troy" and ignite a movement. Classics professors from universities across the land could have gathered in anger, in their tweed jackets, hurling winged words at Hollywood for the outrage. He declined.

"I don't think classicists really mind," he said. "The movie that really got to me was `Gladiator,' but that was just because it was a disgusting movie."

So what do you think of "Troy"?

"All I know about this movie, which I haven't seen, I've read about in Entertainment Weekly, which my teenage daughter subscribes to, and it sounds like one of those big blockbuster type movies that they could have made about anything."

So what worries you?

"I don't worry about it," Professor Redfield said. "I think they must be worried about it. They spent a lot of money on it."

But what about the Brad Pitt thing and that soon more people will see Brad Pitt as Achilles than those who read it and know he could never be Achilles?

"This year that would be true," he said. "On the other hand, I predict `The Iliad' will be around when Brad Pitt is long forgotten, so in the long run it's bound to be the cultural winner.

"It has been up to now. We know that it has been read by many in every generation since its composition. It may be the best poem ever written about love and pain and risk and tragedy."

You're not worried?

"Well, you know, I read your column and you've gotten worried about a lot of things," Redfield said, taking the long view, "but it'll pass."

I guess I'll stop pouting now and see the picture.

jskass@tribune.com