Movie Review

The Four Feathers

The Four Feathers starts out timely, but then quickly dissolves into deja-vu. This is yet another war movie that preaches the concept of brotherhood among soldiers, a la We Were Soldiers and Black Hawk Down.

This is also another serious drama that uses the famous love triangle plot line via Titanic and Pearl Harbor to make the film seem even longer than it even has to be. This is all set against the back drop of the desert, a la The English Patient. The only way Four Feathers stands out at all is that with the exception of Pearl Harbor - it is a terribly dull experience. The story is emotionally empty rather than moving, the characters are pompous and foolish rather than redeemable and heroic, and any excitement looks to have been edited out.

The story begins in London during 1898. Harry Faversham (Heath Ledger) is a British soldier engaged to be married to Esthne Eustace (Kate Hudson). This is both gratifying and troubling to his friend, Jack (Wes Bentley), who feels a jealousy toward Harry. The wedding will have to wait, though, as Harry and the rest of his regiment have been assigned to fight the Mahdi, an Arab group that has attacked a British stronghold in the Sudan.

This is more than Harry bargained for, as he joined the army under his father's wishes and hoped to escape unscathed but now his only way out it to back out - which he does. It doesn't take long for Harry to be labeled a coward and for this act, a triplet of men in his regiment send him three feathers of disgrace, with the fourth feather coming from his own fianc?e.

The only one who still holds Harry in high respect is Jack, and Harry feels equally bad that he's abandoned his friend. So bad in fact that he decides to regain his honor by meeting us with his regiment. He disguises himself as an Arab and travels across the desert as a spy. He also meets an ex-slave (Djimon Honsou) to agrees to give him protection.

One thing Four Feathers does show is how egotistical the British were, which serves as the movie's biggest flaw. Their conquering was far reaching and their view of themselves was far superior than of any other race. This makes no one in this movie really appear to be a protagonist other than Harry, who barely seems much better. Despite the noble deed of wanting to save a friend, he is still killing innocents in order to expand on the the British territory. There is no one to care about in this movie and no one to really root for either, which for a war movie is a bad sign.

Themes such as honor, friendship, and cruelty come up in this film but only cruelty seems like more than an idea. Violence, rather than war, seems to be the subject here and the violence created is disturbing. We understand why Harry feels he must honor his friend but the movie never really shows him doing so, mainly because director Shekhar Kapur and screenwriters Hossein Amini and Michael Schiffer create only one battle scene in the entire movie, and even that seems to be lacking in dramatic tension. The film is more dialogue-driven, which is to say that many segments in this almost three-hour film feel slow and pointless.

The acting is only serviceable. The young cast, which includes Heath Ledger (A Knight's Tale), Wes Bentley (American Beauty), and Kate Hudson (Almost Famous) each do better work trying to hold their British accents than the script does in giving them something to do. The only performance I really liked in this film was from Djimon Honsou, who gives his character a power that makes him intimidating but also likable. Four Feathers has a few things going for it, but overall, the story and the characters are too dry to sit through for this long period of time.

Craig's Grade: C

A	10.9%
B	41.8%
C	31.8%
D	15.3%
F	0.3%