‘Four Feathers’ updates classic story with poor results

In theaters

THE FOUR FEATHERS, directed by Shekhar Kapur, written by Michael Schiffer and Hossein Amini, based on the novel by A.E.W. Mason, 127 minutes, rated PG-13.

In Shekhar Kapur’s “The Four Feathers,” the seventh screen adaptation of A.E.W. Mason’s 1902 novel, a Royal officer accused of cowardice goes to the ends of the Earth to prove otherwise by throwing himself into a war in which he doesn’t believe.

That’s a pretty high Victorian ideal to sell to the film’s intended audience of teen and twentysomething youths, most of whom probably have little or no interest in the film’s true subject – 19th century British colonialism – beyond what it can do for them in a video game.

Still, since Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley and Kate Hudson are on board to lure them into theaters, you can’t help hoping that Indian-born director Kapur will be able to tap into his unique perspective of the bloody ramifications of colonialism that shaped his own country while creating a rousing film that generates new angles on history.

On one level, he does just that, but not without modernizing Mason’s story to suit the sensibilities of a young American audience. It’s that decision that plucks “The Four Feathers” bare and turns it into a soap opera in the Sudan.

In the film, Ledger is Harry Feversham, an officer who ditches his commission on the eve of war and thereby disappoints just about everyone who matters in his life, from his four closest friends to his brooding father and ultimately to his fiancee, Ethne Eustace (Hudson), a pretty pill with pretty curls who dresses up real pretty – but who bawls like a baby the moment she believes she’s fallen for a coward.

While a little British reserve would have been nice on Ethne’s part, Kapur is hellbent on cranking up the histrionics while getting in a few critical digs at Britain’s expense.

With his gloves off, he sends Harry to the Sudan to masquerade as an Arab and to prove he never deserved the four feathers of cowardice he received from Trench (Michael Sheen), Willoughby (Rupert Penry-Jones), Caslton (Kirk Marshall) and – ouch – even Ethne.

His best friend, Jack (Bentley), withheld his feather, but that’s not enough to tickle Harry, whose trip to the Sudan sparks a friendship with Abou Fatma (Djimon Hounsou), a new addition to Mason’s story, but ultimately opens one ugly can of Middle Eastern worms.

With so much melodrama drumming on screen, it’s sometimes difficult to appreciate what the film does well, such as Kapur’s beautifully filmed battle sequences, Robert Richardson’s lush cinematography and James Horner’s score, all of which do their best to compete with the dullness of the one-dimensional characters and Kapur’s penchant for blood, sweat and sand – but none of which, incidentally, manage to eclipse the Technicolor beauty of Zoltan Korda’s 1939 British version of the book.

In the end, what proves insurmountable is Kapur’s belief that he can depict the Brits negatively while also turning them into the heroes of his film. You can’t have it both ways and Kapur doesn’t. If he was going to skewer the Queen’s people, he should have done so with the same ruthless conviction he showcased in “Elizabeth,” which happened to turn that film into the crown jewel of his career.

Grade: C

On video and DVD

MURDER BY NUMBERS, directed by Barbet Schroeder, written by Tony Gayton, 119 minutes, rated R.

The new Sandra Bullock movie, “Murder by Numbers,” features Miss Congeniality herself as a glum San Benito, Calif., policewoman out to solve a murder mystery with no mystery – at least not for audiences, who are handed the answer to the film’s crime right from the start.

In the film, Bullock is Cassie Mayweather, a pepperbox-wielding wreck facing a troubled past and her own personal collapse.

But when two teenage boys – the bookish Justin (Michael Pitt) and the wealthy Richard (Ryan Gosling) – decide to spice up their lives with a little strangulation, amputation, absinthe and murder, Cassie’s grimmer-than-grim life gets the unexpected lift it needs.

Indeed, with her new partner, Sam Kennedy (Ben Chaplin), at her side – not to mention in her bed – she finds herself in the thick of a standard-issue, cat-and-mouse murder investigation that somehow builds to her being mauled by a baboon.

As directed by Barbet Schroeder (“Single White Female”) from a screenplay by Tony Gayton, the film is inspired by the real-life Leopold-Loeb case of 1924 and, in turn, by Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope,” Richard Fleischer’s “Compulsion” and Tom Kalin’s “Swoon.”

But that’s where the comparisons end. “Murder by Numbers” is one of those films whose title speaks volumes for its predictable storytelling and for Hollywood’s growing cynicism toward those paying its bills.

Grade: C

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.