The Four Feathers (2002)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Shekhar Kapur

Writers (WGA):

A.E.W. Mason (novel)
Michael Schiffer (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

20 September 2002 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | War

Tagline:

Freedom. Country. Honor. Passion. To save his best friend, one man must risk everything he loves.

Plot:

A British officer resigns his post just before battle and subsequently receives four white feathers from his friends and fiancee as symbols of what they believe to be his cowardice.

Plot Keywords:

Cowardice | British | Sudan | North Africa | Church Of England

Cast

Wes Bentley	...	Jack Durrance
Mohamed Bouich	...	Sudanese Storyteller
Campbell Brown	...	Dervish Ansar
Daniel Caltagirone	...	Gustave
James Cosmo	...	Col. Sutch
Andy Coumbe	...	Colonel Other Regiment
Angela Douglas	...	Aunt Mary
Karim Doukkali	...	Egyptian Orderly
Lucy Gordon	...	Isabelle
Megan Hall	...	Millie
James Hillier	...	Drunken Corporal
Nick Holder	...	British Lion
Djimon Hounsou	...	Abou Fatma
Kate Hudson	...	Ethne Eustace
Alex Jennings	...	Colonel Hamilton

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for intense battle sequences, disturbing images, violence and some sensuality.

Runtime:

131 min | Canada:125 min (Toronto International Film Festival)

Country:

USA | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:14 | Iceland:16 (video rating) | Portugal:M/12 (original rating) | Malaysia:U | Australia:M (TV rating) | South Korea:15 | Argentina:13 | Australia:MA | Brazil:12 | Canada:14A | Finland:K-15 | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:IIA | Netherlands:12 | New Zealand:R13 | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Philippines:PG-13 | Singapore:NC-16 | Singapore:PG (cut) | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:14 (canton of the Grisons) | UK:15 | USA:PG-13 (certificate #39145) (edited for re-rating) | USA:R (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Bledlow, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

The major fight scene is the Battle of Abu Klea, which took place on January 17, 1885. A British Desert Column of approximately 1,100 troops fought a Mahdist force of over 12,000 dervishes. The scene depicted in the film, however, is a fictional version of the actual battle.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Harry cuts the camel to drink its blood, he is tied by a rope around his waist to the camel. In the following shot when the camel walks off, he is free of the rope.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Title Card: By 1884 over a quarter of the earth's surface had been conquered by the British Army. There was no greater honor for a young man than to fight for Queen and Country. Those that refused the call to arms brought shame and humiliation on their friends and families...
Title Card: The Symbol of their disgrace was the white feather of cowardice...

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants (2004)

Von Einem der auszog, das Fuerchten zu (ver-)lernen

About friendship, about duty, about truth and it's consequences, about true loyalty among friends, about parental expectation and it's disappointment.

When I saw the "Four Feathers" I noticed the immense similarity to another film I had seen but days ago, "Black Hawk Down". That quote from Plato "Only the dead know the end of war", that the audience is given at the very beginning of the latest Ridley Scott film applies to the "Four Feathers" as well as it does to "Black Hawk Down".

Although the incidents which inspired those films are almost exactly one hundred years apart, the essence of the two plots is quite the same. Only the man next to you, most likely your friend one way or the other, counts. Nothing else. Both stories are surprisingly similar, though the motivation in "Four Feathers" is somewhat more personal than in "Black Hawk Down", the late twentieth century being more marked by conflicts that stir the world's elaborate common conscience, something that didn't exist that way in 1898. Although war itself has lost nothing of its disgusting and useless violence in those one hundred years.

A game of Rugby, young men, two fighting teams, the camera following these men, enabling the spectator to get a first impression of the protagonists and their relations to each other as well as the splendour and camaraderie of the British army at the end of the 19th century, before the real story sets in.

"Four Feathers" tells the story of one man who acts upon his feelings when he exits the British Army, whose friends interpret his honesty towards himself as mere cowardice and present him each with a white feather for his resignation. Only when he alone stays behind after having forsaken the war, he realises that he cannot and does not want to live with the fact that his friends and his beloved think of him as a coward and he acts. Alone in the Sudan, he leaves all his fear behind without question, driven by the worries for the fate of the friends he desperately tries to save.

It's an interesting combination, the Indian director who seems to just have a knack for thorough British history ("Elizabeth" too dealt with an almost mythical part of British History), and this historical era, again bringing it magically to life in his very own particular style. The photography is truly beautiful, the desert with it's wide spread dunes, the sparse vegetation as a threat to life itself but also a friend for those who understand its rules and live by it. The story of the film sometimes fails the attempt to bring the inner turmoil of the main protagonist creditably to the big screen. And it is maybe this discrepancy between the book, dealing with a single mind, and the movie, attempting to stay close to the book as well as entertain an audience, that explains why the story sometimes disintegrates and leaves the spectator quite alone.

The cast though is a real jewel what young Hollywood is concerned, Heath Ledger giving one hell of a performance, the inner turmoil of his character visible at all times on screen, carefully acted, seldom too much. The chemistry with Kate Hudson is certainly there, still Miss Hudson just doesn't look like a 19th century girl (but maybe the impression she left as "Penny Lane" is still too strong). Wes Bentley manages to simply be that Jack, the guilt-ridden and in the end sickly friend who is saved by the one person he gave a white feather for cowardice to. And Djimoun Hounsou who is always a real pleasure to watch. He evaporates the magic as well as the menace of his role towards his audience and his fellow actors and manages to keep the story together on more than one occasion.

The film is worth seeing it for the theme itself has lost nothing of it's explosiveness!