The Four Feathers (2002)

Very well executed

the audience applauded

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

I have to admit, looking at the scores I wasn't expecting a really good movie, but to my surprise it was.The story was way better then I assumed and acting was good. For me the movie was more then worth watching and left me with a good feeling. I liked the fights and the struggle to find his friend and regain his proud as the feather stand symbol for coward behavior. Also the unexpected help, which I couldn't really figure out why was a nice swing in this movie.I think this is something really worth watching and I hope you enjoy it as I did.

Not because The Four Feathers is a favorite from childhood that wears very well but because, after recording from TMC and archiving on a disc, I discovered I had a 115 minute movie, not the 75 or 90 minute versions either listed on sites like IMDb or for sale from, well, everyone.Initially I thought that there was something wrong with the recording but, after a couple of hours looking for intermissions, repeated scenes or recording breaks it turned out this was the entire movie and where TMC got it is a wonderful mystery. TMC itself lists it as a 90 minute movie and there was no mention of having discovered this version either on-site or during the presentation.Whatever - I'm just glad they did because those extra 25 minutes add to the film tremendously and fill in a lot of holes that I'd noticed, even as a kid, in the 90 minute version. As much as I'd enjoyed it, The Four Feathers always seemed truncated in that version but I'd always blamed the local stations for chopping it up. Now I know better.This version does start slow, overdoing the set-up, but that is a very, very minor flaw. Once it takes off (a poor term for any British movie) it become a true marvel of film making. The pace is very much British, measured like a metronome set at 2/4 lentando, but that pacing actually adds to the impact of each scene, especially the action scenes, which seemed discordant in the 'original', but now have the length to stand on their own as mini codas instead of irritating diversions.Ironically, those extra 25 minutes speed the viewing by eliminating the 'stops' (those breaks when one scene doesn't quite flow from another, pushing you off the screen) and restoring the seamless flow of the movie.So, thanks TMC, wherever you found this, for a very welcome surprise.Update 12-16-13Just noticed that IMDb has me reviewing the 2002 version. Never saw it; this review is for the 1939 version.

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.

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