The latest of many versions of A.E.W. Mason 's iconic colonial epic, a young British officer (Heath Ledger) resigns right before his regiment is set to aid British Forces in the Sudan. This is seen as cowardice and he is given four white feathers, including one from his fiancée (Kate Hudson), as a symbol of his desertion. Now he must journey to Africa, reclaim his honour and aid his friend (Wes Bentley) from afar.Sadly neither very powerful nor epic, the newest 'Four Feathers' is little more than another 'Titanic' romantic history bandwagon chaser. It's biggest strength is the production: Shekar Kapur's (Elizabeth) direction is sweeping and large, enhanced by great costumes, sets and location filming that does make you believe you are looking at colonial Africa, with the last doomed battle a great action showpiece. Veteran James Horner's score, while not among his best, is still competent and gives the needed bombast and emotion to scenes, sometimes more than the screenplay. Its mostly young cast give decent performances, especially the always dependable Ledger as our troubled lead, though Hudson and especially Bentley wade through middling accents, and the rest leave not much of an impression.And about there is where the positives end: the screenplay, with several writers attached including Bruce Joel Rubin and Hossein Amini, is frankly a snooze for the most part, with thin characterization, lazy symbolism and, honestly, a lack of clarity or focus on its themes or messages. You'd think it'd be mostly dealing with questions about courage and bravery, perhaps even a timely take given Iraq and Afghanistan, but the film diverges into a bunch of other territories including colonialism, faith, identity, social classes, romance and does nothing interesting with any of these. Furthermore, because it is so clunky and cluttered with all this junk, the pacing often suffers, with the middle being a pain to get through as we endure long stretches of Ledger just wandering about the desert. If it was trying to be pensive or deep, it really backfired.In the end, baring some big battles, this is a safe skip. Its only remarkable feature is how completely and utterly unremarkable it is.

The Four Feathers (2002) is one of the slowest, most uninteresting movies I have ever seen. After the tedious grueling experience of watching this movie I can understand why I have never heard of any of the actors and actresses in the movie. I almost gave up on watching the movie about half the way through but I decided to stick it out. I would have had better entertainment if I had put on a Little Rascals Spanky and Our Gang short. The supposed "action" scenes would serve as put to sleep bed time stories. I search my memory for anything good to say about this movie but I can not think of anything good to say about this movie. This movie will join my list of movies I have seen once and never want to see again.

The only people who could think this a good film are those who have never read the book or the good film version. The screenplay is a typically awful Hollywood travesty which only goes to show the absolute dirth of writing talent in modern movie-land.The acting itself isn't nearly as bad as the writing and I do think the cast would not have looked half as dire had they been given a script and an adaptation that was even half decent.I would not recommend wasting your time watching this tripe, get the book and enjoy that instead. Alternatively get one of the other versions which, whilst not perfect are a hundred times better than this nonsense.

The four feathers is the latest addition to a list of movies with the same name and theme. The story: It is the high tide of the British empire. Harry Feversham, a young officer in the queens army, asks and gets dismissed from his regiment after he hears it will be sent to the Sudan to fight against the Mahdi insurrection. His friends and fiancé don't appreciate this behavior and each sent him a white feather as a token of their disfavor. Harry then tries to redeem himself by going to the Sudan and help his friends against the Mahdi. I watched this movie to get a better understand of how movies are made. This movie certainly has amazing scenery that bring tears to your eyes by their beauty. The sharp sand color, the exotic people and desert landscapes, it all is impressive, as is the moist misty green england. But while the landscape, people and buildings are given much attention the story is told as if in afterthought and with a lot of movie errors. So many that even I noticed. Things in the movie just don't add up. The first pivotal moment in the story is when Harry gets to hear that he is off to the Sudan. We seem him have an anguished talk with his friend Jack, then see him have bad dream and then next he gets himself dismissed in one go. It all happens in three minutes flat which seems enormous hurried compared to the ten minutes the movie takes to show the happy live. It is somehow too brief, too unexplained and too unbelievable that he can leave on the same day hey he tenders his resignation, without letting his friends know or him being thrown in the brig for cowardice? You might expect that an important moment in the film is when his bethrotted sends him a feather(thus breaking off the engagement). But we are only told when someone comes visiting Harry: oh by the way who's the fourth feather? My former wife to be. The entire scene is also strange because we hear someone knock on the door, Harry opens the door and next the visitor is inside and they are talking about the feathers. Since the scene was dark I had the distinct feeling the visitor was still standing in the door opening. Harry takes a trip to Egypt and then travels as part of a small caravan to the Sudan. The caravan brings hookers to the English army(we are told), but they aren't hookers(we are told later), but black Ethiopian princesses? And how come someone is bringing black hookers from Egypt to the Sudan? Should it not be the other way around? Anyway they kill the obnoxious caravan leader(who seems to be alone and unarmed?) knock out Harry who drags himself on a camel and rides to some place. After a while Harry drops to the desert-floor, the camel wanders off and in the next minute someone finds Harry! In addition we see in the background tracks in the sand. The desert seems quite a busy place.Jack is chasing a Mahdi sniper, he carries a rifle, the next moment Jack has a pistol in his hand. The sniper is chased down a street and a minute later he is chased down the same street again. Harry, disguised as a Mahdi, is charging amidst the Mahdi horde, first he carries a sword. Then he drops it when his horse is shot. Then he is on his horse again without sword, next he has the sword again. All the while he is at the head of the Mahdi horde even though he fell behind in a previous scene.The English are attacked by a Mahdi horde. The Mahdi horde is killed to the last man with gun fire, but only the people fall, the horses are bullet proof. In fact the horses seem unimpressed by the fire.A cavalry Mahdi horde attacks across the desert and we see the shot alternating between cavalry and infantry who arrive at the same time by the English forces. We see in the background a Gatling gun twice, it is never used. But Gatling guns where never used by the English. English guns are limbered, the next scene unlimbered. The guns hold fire until the position is about to be overrun by the Mahdi. Rifle fire is used at the latest moment? English troops march in close order? Nope that is not normal. The English cavalry is called tirailleurs? Tirailleurs are light infantry not cavalry. The cavalry chases the retreating Mahdi horde, then is ambushed by Mahdi infantry buried in the ground the Mahdi horde just moved over twice. Come on. English cavalry(now on camels?) movie into a village. They ride without guards. Of course such ineptitude must be punished with an ambush.The entire movie has a feeling of careless sloppyness. Kapur seems to be in a hurry to get to the desert and it's fine scenery and the story is second to those nice views. Important moments are hardly played out, unimportant events are dragged out because they seem to offering nice pictures. This movie has a remarkable sloppy feel which is a shame really. A six for effort.