In short: Plot-wise it’s entertaining, motivation-wise, it makes no sense.

Based on a novel by A.E.W. Mason
Sscreenplay by Michael Schiffer
Directed by Shekhar Kapur

Heath Ledger Harry Faversham
Wes Bentley Lt. Jack Durrance
Kate Hudson Ethne Eustace
Djimon Hounsou Abou Fatma
Michael Sheen Trench

The Four Feathers seems like one of those movies that movie trailer voicerover great Hal Douglas refers to "epic." The trailers certainly looked interesting, and the stars are well-established. The sets and art direction create a believable 1844 world (as I know what 1844 looked like), and it was entertaining on the level of plot. The war scenes are violent, and director Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth) makes you want to know what’s going to happen next. Given the our current real-life tensions, I would caution anyone sensitive to scenes of Arabs being shot by the British to abstain from this film.

Where if falls totally apart for me is with Heath Ledger’s Harry Faversham. He decides to resign his commission from the British Army the day he finds out he’s about to be shipped off to the Sudan to battle the Muslims who are attacking British outposts. The officer at the desk he delivers his papers asks if what he really wants is a leave of absence, since he’s just gotten engaged the day before to his love Ethne (pronounced Eth-NEE). He says he wants to resign, and when she confronts him, he flat out says he’d do so regardless of whether he is engaged. His three friends, upon finding out, each send him a white feather, which we’re told in a title card at the very beginning of the movie, is a symbol of cowardice. He later receives a fourth (off screen, for some reason), by Ethne. His father, who he claims was the only reason he entered the Army, disowns him.

What does Harry do? He decides to go to the Sudan to return the feathers.

Huh?

That, at least, is what the publicity says. The movie itself doesn’t give a clear motive that I could remember. He doesn’t go because he changes his mind, or because one of his friends is captured, or anything. He simply goes to the Sudan where he ends up on the very battlefield he supposedly wanted to avoid, except it’s after he’s disgraced himself. When an African named Abou Fatma later finds Harry unconscious and dehydrated in the Sudan desert, he asks him why he deserted, and Harry says he was afraid. If he was afraid, why did he eventually go to the Sudan anyway? As if to acknowledge the stupidity of this character, Abou actually points out this very contradiction! If Harry wanted to protect his best friend Jack Durrance (American Beauty’s Wes Bentley), wouldn’t it have been a lot less trouble to just stay in uniform, and go to the Sudan with his regiment where he could keep a close eye on Jack? If it had been written where Jack was captured or something, and Harry, realizing his friend’s life was more important than his own fear of battle, this might’ve made sense, but Harry just flipflops and decides to jaunt off to the Sudan long before any of his friends get into battle.

Then it gets even dumber. (Spoiler Warning: This and the next paragraph reveal crucial plot points.) After a particularly brutal battle in which one of the friends in his regiment is captured, Harry decides to allow the Muslims to capture him, so he can free his friend Trench, a character who, by the time of this part of the plot, I had pretty much forgotten about and even had trouble remembering. Why am I supposed to care about this guy?

By the time Harry returns to England, he tells Ethne, who now knows for reasons I won’t go into, that Harry is not a coward after all, that the feathers were his good luck charm. WHAT!? How the hell does he figure this? After all the stuff that happens to him and his friends, he considers them good luck, what, just because he made it back to England? What utter rubbish. The movie makes no attempt, past that opening title card, to use the feathers as a symbol of Harry’s mindset, or any theme, beyond that of an occasional prop. (End Spoiler Warning.)

Maybe it’s me. Maybe I just didn’t get it. I know that one of the first cuts of this film was around three hours, whereas the one I saw tonight was only 2 hours and 12 minutes. Perhaps stuff was cut from it that might’ve shed light on Harry’s motivation, or on the feathers as a motif? This the sixth movie to be adapted from A.E.W. Mason’s novel. Perhaps renting one of the previous ones will do so instead.