Well, tie me up and tickle me silly
The Four Feathers is British history for eejits
REVIEW
THE FOUR FEATHERS
Starring Heath Ledger, Kate Hudson and Wes Bentley
Directed by Shekhar Kapur
Now showing
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Director Shekhar Kapur’s film adaptation of A.E.W. Mason’s novel The Four Feathers is an empty-headed bauble so pointless and overblown one can already hear the Oscar nominations rolling down the pipeline.
The film opens with explanatory titles – in the days of Olde Victorian England, cowardice was denoted by the presentation of a white feather. Following Harry Faversham’s (Heath Ledger) decision to ditch on the army the very week his unit is to ship out to the deserts of Sudan, he receives a small package containing three such feathers. Harry’s fiancée, Ethne Eustace (Kate Hudson), asks, "What are those feathers?" Harry responds, "These feathers are for cowardice," just in case we missed the opening titles. Later, Harry toys with a fourth feather. "Who gave you that fourth feather for cowardice, Harry?" asks a character whose name I’ve since forgotten. "This fourth feather for cowardice is from Ethne. It’s a feather for cowardice," replies Harry.
Prompted to join his ex-friends in the desert to return the feathers (for cowar... oh, never mind), Harry teams up with Abou Fatma (Djimon Hounsou in the film’s only truly notable performance), a wandering Moor warrior. Upon Harry’s arrival in the Sudan, a helpful screen title reads, "THE SUDAN," so we won’t mistake the vast expanses of the Sudanese desert for the British countryside. Resting in a cave after a long day’s journey across the desert, they laugh at the funny differences between their respective races, and Abou helps Harry disguise himself as non-British (never mind Ledger’s clumsy British accent that betrays that fact every time he opens his mouth). One needs no map to figure out the rest – Harry infiltrates the enemy ranks and leaves his old compatriots asking, "what feathers?"
Despite its innumerable flaws, The Four Feathers still manages to remain somewhat worthwhile thanks to the sumptuous photography of Robert Richardson and Kapur’s brilliant hand at epic filmmaking. Nearly every other shot is suitable for framing.
During the film’s climactic battle, the British troops are attacked from all sides in a sequence of pure cinematic rush – one particularly amazing shot takes in the four-way approach from an angle far above. In a cramped mass prison, a sea of bodies writhes inside a cavernous space seemingly designed for less than half their numbers – it’s a device so effective it deletes any theatre legroom complaints.
For all of Kapur’s efforts, however, The Four Feathers feels like a movie that was mauled at the insistence of a studio leery about the running time and obsessed with having an all-star cast. The Four Feathers crumbles and falls on the backs of its star trio in what may very well constitute the worst casting job of any film in the past five years. Poor Wes Bentley fares worst as the blinded Lt. Jack Durrance, Harry’s steadfast biggest fan. More than capable of portrayng any number of disconnected Gen X’ers, here Bentley blows the actor’s dream of playing blind by knocking over teacups and cocking his head like a confused dog. Besides spouting British accents so bad I’m willing to bet the names credited with Voice Coach duties have Newark addresses, Ledger, Hudson and Bentley do little more than alternately glare into the camera or gaze off into the desert (well, Bentley just looks off all wide-eyed to the upper-left most of the time).
If The Four Feathers were to take on human form, she would be one of the world’s most striking supermodels. Sure, she’s gorgeous to look at and walks a straight line down the catwalk from start to finish, but when was the last time you heard of a supermodel with a Ph.D? |
