The Four Feathers (Full Screen Collector's Edition)

SET IN LATE-19TH-CENTURY ENGLAND, A SOLDIER RESIGNS FROM HISDUTIES ON THE EVE OF A BATTLE WITH SUDAN. HIS FIANCEE AND THREE FRIENDS SEND HIM THE TITULAR FEATHERS, WHICH REPRESENTS A COWARDICE.WHAT HIS LOVED ONES DIDN'T KNOW IS THE SOLDIER HADCHANGED HIS MIND AND TRAVELED NORTH TO HELP HIS REGIMENT.

The seventh filming of A.E.W. Mason's classic 1902 novel, this near-epic production of The Four Feathers looks great, sounds great, and feels rather average. It would be difficult to diminish the rousing adventure of Mason's novel, and director Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth) certainly gets more bang for his buck, with massive battle scenes and rugged, sun-baked harshness enhanced by Robert Richardson's masterful cinematography. Kapur preserves the universal appeal of the story, set in the 1880s, in which a promising soldier (Heath Ledger) resigns on the eve of battle in Britain's Sudanese campaign, is labeled a coward by his fiancée (Kate Hudson), and redeems himself by posing as a Muslim warrior to rescue his best friend Jack (Wes Bentley) from certain death in the desert. For all its heroics, however, the film seems oddly passionless; Djimon Hounsou is excellent as Ledger's desert guardian, but these young Hollywood stars lack the authenticity of Zoltan Korda's 1939 film, which remains the definitive version. --Jeff Shannon