September 20, 2002 | If you’re the type of moviegoer who’s always complaining that “they sure don’t make them like they used to,” take a gander at The Four Feathers and you’ll understand why they don’t. A ponderously stiff and thoroughly unnecessary version of A.E.W. Mason’s oft-filmed adventure novel about the glory days of the British Empire, the film offers a couple of reasonably rousing battle scenes, and not much else.
If you strain your eyes, you might spot a couple of provocatively relevant plot points – after all, the story pivots on Western forces in a far-off land, in pursuit of explicitly Muslim foes – that might explain why director Shekhar Kapur (who also gave us the thoughtfully revisionist and brazenly entertaining Elizabeth) was drawn to this moldy material in the first place. But except for a few, fleeting scenes that subtly criticize, or frankly satirize, the whole notion of “the white’s man burden,” Four Feathers is scarcely more enlightened, and far less entertaining, than similar guts-and-glory epics of the 1930s and ’40s.
Heath Ledger plays Harry Feversham, a British army general’s son who has earned an officer’s rank in the Royal Cumbrians and, more important, won the heart of Ethne (Kate Hudson), the beautiful daughter of another officer. The year is 1884, a good time to be a British solider if you’re keen on the idea of fighting for queen and country. But when Harry’s regiment is ordered to the Sudan to fight the good fight against “ Mohammedan fanatics,” our hero quite reasonably has second thoughts about a long-term military career. “I sometimes wonder,” he tells a comrade, “what a godforsaken desert in the middle of nowhere has to do with her majesty the queen.”
Doubt leads to drastic action – Harry resigns his commission just before his regiment ships out – which in turn leads to disgrace. Harry receives four feathers – the mark of a coward – from three embittered ex-comrades and his deeply disappointed fiancée. He responds with a stiff upper lip – well, OK, with a slightly quivering upper lip, and a couple of teary eyes – but he isn’t moved to mend his craven ways until he learns that Jack Durrance (Wes Bentley), his best friend and sometime romantic rival, and other members of his former regiment are being attacked by rebel forces.
Harry vows to redeem himself by taking a solo trip to the African desert, disguising himself as a nomadic Arab – with a beard and make-up that, alas, make him look more like a grungy, sunburnt Brad Pitt – and gaining the invaluable assistance of Abou Fatma (Djimon Hounsou of Amistad), a wily African mercenary.
It doesn’t help much that the performances given by Ledger, Bentley and Hudson are even more unconvincing than Ledger’s makeup. And it helps even less that, with its narrative gaps and ragged continuity, Four Feathers feels a lot like a long movie that was whittled down from a much longer one.
The filmmakers try to be as politically correct as they possibly can while still allowing some of the rowdier British troops to address people of color as “wogs.” But Djimon Hounsou doesn’t really need any affirmative-action help to steal the movie from the fair-skinned folks who are its nominal stars. His movements are gravely graceful, his screen presence is effortlessly magnetic – and his authoritative line readings abundantly convey fierce pride, quick wit and cunning intelligence.
After Abou saves Harry’s bacon for the 15 th or 20 th time, even Harry has to question why the big guy bothers. Abou patiently explains: “God put you in my way. I have no choice.” As a film critic who often must cope with misfires such as The Four Feathers, I know exactly what he means.
