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THE FOUR FEATHERS By Rachel Deahl Review Film Critic Click for the Official Site Although it's wrapped in the ilk of British history, Shekhar Kapur's paean to one of England's catastrophic campaigns in the Sudan during the late 1880s is plastered with the stuff of American patriotism. "Black Hawk Down" by way of English imperialism, "The Four Feathers" delivers a compelling, if unsatisfactory, statement about the heroism of soldiering without condemning the diplomacy behind it. Heath Ledger stars as Harry Feversham, the most admired and adored soldier in his regiment. The son of a renowned and decorated senior officer and the fiancée of the beautiful Ethne (Kate Hudson), Harry is primed to begin a charmed life. But when word comes down that his regiment is to be shipped off to North Africa to squelch a Sudanese revolt, the young soldier is overwhelmed with doubts and resigns his commission. In response to his withdrawal, Harry's friends (save his closest, played by Wes Bentley) and bride-to-be send him four white feathers as a symbol of cowardice. Unable to overcome his shame, Harry cuts himself off from everyone and everything he knows. But when he learns of the high casualty rate the English battalions are suffering, he decides to go to Africa on his own, to save his friends. Once in the brutal deserts of the foreign land, Harry hides among the natives and sets out on a seemingly hopeless quest to fight his own battle. Helmed effectively by Kapur (who was also behind the glitzy "Elizabeth"), this sweeping vision of the A.E.W. Mason novel slips back and forth between the endless sands of Africa and the colonial grandeur of the British Empire. But, aside from the watered down love triangle at its convoluted center, the real meat of "The Four Feathers" lies in Harry's confusing struggle abroad. Unable to pontificate why he didn't want to go to war in the first place (the root of it is neither fear nor political dissention according to him), Ledger's lost soul wanders through the desert as a displaced kind of mercenary waiting for his friends to fall into peril so he can save them. Luckily, Ledger has his own guardian angel in the form of an African drifter named Abou (Djimon Hounsou).
On the surface, "The Four Feathers" is an ode to the bonds of friendship, particularly those formed by young men on the front lines. And, like "Black Hawk Down" which managed to spin American soldiers as heroes in a story about a decidedly dark moment in U.S. military history, "The Four Feathers" celebrates the camaraderie of battle without appropriately condemning the machinations behind it. Like Ridley Scott's glossy war movie, "The Four Feathers" all but ignores the atrocities of English imperialism -- most conveniently a colonized native (Abou) is the repeated savior of a colonizer (Harry). A personal film played out on an international stage; it's hard not to criticize "The Four Feathers" for, like its hero, being so blind to its historical surroundings. But, with a surprisingly deft trio of lead performances from its young cast and some effectively harrowing depictions of combat, "The Four Feathers" does have its moments. The irony is that, while the battle scenes will transport some viewers' back to the blood and gore of "Braveheart," the pace and setting is going to remind others of "The English Patient." The combination of styles and subplots leaves "The Four Feathers" in limbo somewhere between a love story, a war movie and a tale of friendship. That the film belongs solely in none of these categories is its downfall; that it manages to touch on all three is its greatest strength. THE BANGER SISTERS Click for the Official Site What if we looked up Penny Lane, that irresistible "Band-Aid" from "Almost Famous," today? Chances are, the free spirit would look and sound a lot like Suzette, the aging groupie Goldie Hawn brings vividly to life in "The Banger Sisters." That the two characters are played by the real-life mother-daughter team of Kate Hudson and Hawn (who, coincidentally look strikingly similar) only lends to the idea that we are watching the evolution of a single character here, a kind of hooker-hippie-with-a-heart-of-gold from a bygone era when rock 'n roll really mattered. And, if Penny seemed slightly out of place even in the '60s (who knew most groupies looked more like someone pulled from the pages of Abercrombie & Fitch than Frederick's of Hollywood), Suzette's anachronistic existence is the entire basis of this trite chick flick. Where Penny championed herself as a whore who really loved the music more than the musicians, Suzette has a similar, if muted, stance. But, in the opening scene, as Suzette loses her bartending job at Whiskey A Go Go after her manager yawns at the elder stateswoman's anecdote about screwing Jim Morrison in that club's very bathroom, it's clear that no one cares about the music anymore. The ghosts of rock's glory days are nowhere to be found in "The Banger Sisters." From the vanquished streets of West Hollywood to the manicured lawns of the ritzy Phoenix suburb Suzette flees to (where the other half of this sisterhood lives), the '60s are dead and gone. As Susan Sarandon's daughter (Erika Christensen) asks Suzette at one point, in response to a story about her mom's interactions with the Lizard King, "My mom knew Van Morrison?" So much for rock 'n roll never dying.
A congenial comedy about the reunion of two best friends some twenty years after their heady days of sex and drugs in the generation of free love, "The Banger Sisters" doles out the familiar scenarios of the an old friendship become anew. Although Hawn's turn as the raspy-voiced, trash-talking Suzette is a delight, no one else here has the material or spark to lift this mediocre project above itself. Sarandon seems flustered by the fact that she's turning in a paycheck role in a vulgarized comedic rip-off of "Thelma & Louise" (as well she should be) while Christensen sleep-walks through her role and Sarandon's own daughter (Eva Amurri) painfully overdoes it as the more awkward of Lavinia's offspring. As mildly disturbing as it is for Suzette and Vinni to look around at the ruin of their lives, it's even more of a downer to watch Sarandon and Hawn playing these over-the-hill broads -- it reminds all of us that we really are getting older.
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