the_prince_of_frogs 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.

Blueghost There's a lot of stunning imagery in this pic, but the director's aim here is to educate the public on the political realities of empire building; foreign and domestic. The director is not sympathetic to the British in any way, and it shows in this film.We have some superb cinematography for an historic epic focusing on four disparate comrades of "Her Majesties Army". But note, we don't come to sympathize with any of them. We don't come to care for any of them. We don't get attached to a single protagonist. One wonders why that is.It's because we're truly looking at a historical drama that asks us to follow the characters from A to B to C, but only from the vantage of a distant viewer, and as audience members engaged in the emotional outcome of the drama, we're left high and dry in this regard. This is a very objectifying work. We see the harsh realities of colonial warfare, but there's no sense of wanting or needing some or any of the characters to live. We're almost looking at an anti-British film. Something that comes near to being pro-Islam, but is more anti-colonial in its stance than a prostelizatizn of some other political thought.But, does that make it a bad film? No, not really. I did like watching it for the visuals, but I did feel somewhat empty. On my first viewing I thought and wondered how anyone could not like this picture, because I thought there was a heartfelt attempt to show the plight of everyone. And that's the irony of it all. Because the film is so thorough in its depiction of hardship, you never get a sense of where to position your own emotional investment as per my previous paragraph.As a stand alone film I think it's okay, but nothing to write home about in terms of being a fully realized drama. The acting is is actually quite good, though overstated at times. The late Heath Ledger tries to infuse the sublime in his thesping as he takes on the dual persona of a young officer who's scared to go to war, but later tears down his cowardice after his trials in the Sudan.Something that might've helped this film would have been for the characters to have realized who and where they were; i.e. what they were doing (to channel a little Yoda here). Yet again, all we see is what one might call the emotional plot. The actions and the reactions of the characters. We never truly get to look into their hearts.Mores the pity.Rent it for a night's viewing. The actual story is pretty decent, and worth seeing because of some very impressive cinematography. But, don't be surprised if you feel a little empty at the end of it.

bkoganbing The popular A.E.W. Mason novel The Four Feathers gets its sixth film version if you count a 1977 one made for television with Beau Bridges. Heath Ledger stars as protagonist Harry Fevasham who resigns his commission on the eve of his regiment being shipped out to the Sudan during the early 1880s to contain an uprising by the Osama Bin Laden of his day, the Mahdi. If you remember that's the fellow who was played by Sir Laurence Olivier in Khartoum.Ledger comes from a family with a military tradition and its just expected he join the army. To placate Dad he does, but he doesn't count on a war, who ever does. His messmates led by Wes Bentley and even his intended bride Kate Hudson think Ledger a coward. He's not so sure they're not right.But he decides to go to the Sudan in any event, he does speak the languages by dint of his military background. Ledger goes to test his own courage and grit. What happens there is the bulk of the story.Most people remember the version of The Four Feathers from Paramount in 1929, one of their last silents that starred Richard Barthelmess and William Powell. The British did their own blockbuster version in 1939 with John Clements and Ralph Richardson, one of their very earliest films in color. This one compares admirably with both of those.What it does do is give a picture of the Sudan very much as it is today, a land of bitter poverty and racial strife. The Moslems versus the Christians versus the Nativist religions. A dose of British Imperialism in full swing at the time didn't help the situation one bit. A lesson to be learned, but probably won't be by the people that should learn it.Still the story of Ledger finding himself in that desert country is still one that has a lot of merit for today. Heath gives a fine account of himself in the lead role and also to be noticed is Djimmon Hounsou who plays the native who pulls Heath's buttocks from the proverbial sling.Heath Ledger's legion of fans will be pleased with The Four Feathers.

Nazi_Fighter_David The story is set in 1884 during the British Empire uprising… Harry Faversham (Heath Ledger) is a young army officer from a distinguished military family who never wanted to join the army… He did it for his father… He resigns his commission on the eve of his regiment's departure for Sudan… Harry has already disgusted his strict father, a respected General in the Queen's Army, by declaring no interest in a soldier's life and now that he is about to be married to his beloved Ethne (Kate Hudson), he wants to settle down… When his closest friends and fellow officers find out that he disgraced the regiment, they send him a box of feathers of cowardice… When Ethne sends him another feather, he then disappears to redeem himself, to face up to his fears, to discover himself, to win back his self-respect...Shekhar Kapur's "The Four Feathers" is beautifully filmed and performed… The themes of love, honor, loyalty, friendship, trust, redemption, wisdom, true strength, and true courage are all there… They made the characters entirely plausible… But what truly lingers in the memory about it are the stunning sequences filmed in the Sudan and the splendid staging of several battles, showing the then standard British tactics employed in holding off attackers—the forming of squares, with riflemen deployed in standing, kneeling, firing, holding line, and keeping eye on the target… These exciting scenes of combat and carnage are truly impressive