One thing not to do in a movie is ignore a warning from Burt Lancaster. He's better than Cassandra. He predicts God's wrath in ELMER GANTRY, rain in RAINMAKER, misery in SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS: and it is delivered. Here Peter O'Toole fails to heed his advice on the white man's burden and as a result spoils his tea.
Big budget, great cast, absolutely brilliant compositional photography; but dull, in the way that only an English filmmaker can dull up high adventure. Stunning when you think about it, since this empire gave us Kipling and Stevenson and Haggard, and later Noel Coward (IN WHICH WE SERVE) and Hitchcock (NORTH BY NORTHWEST) and John Irvin (DOGS OF WAR) and Stephen Frears (THE HIT, DANGEROUS LIASONS, you name it); but it also gave us Lean (Lawrence of Ad Nausea) and Thompson (save us from GUNS OF NAVARONE) and all those mediocre 60s Bond directors, and this guy Hickox.
This movie seems better if you view it as a series of lovely paintings, like THE DUELISTS or BARRY LYNDON or HEAVEN'S GATE. DP Ousama Rawi and second unit director/DP Peter MacDonald enjoy the landscape of moving things, and are neither of them afraid to move the camera. Both favor a wide lens, vast perspectives reminiscent of nineteenth century landscape oils, but equally influenced by the high meridian of the Eastern traditions. The percentage of striking, well-orchestrated images is among the highest in any movie.
But these images are in aid of nothing because the movie has no heart. It's hard to care about characters who only mouth politics and jargon. Cy Endfield, who did such a wonderful job sustaining suspense and class commentary in ZULU, gets partial writing credit here but unfortunately was not allowed to helm. The relationships are thin, the characters familiar, the situations explored at travelogue depth. And the pace, while not exactly leaden, is no quick-step.
An old fashioned adventure, but not in a good John Boorman-Ronald Neame-Guy Hamilton way. More in a bad Andrew MacLaglen-Jack Smight-Anthony Asquith way. In fact, some of the best realizations of British Empire romance have come from Americans: Huston's MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, Stevens' GUNGA DIN, Rafelson's MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON.
Big budget, great cast, absolutely brilliant compositional photography; but dull, in the way that only an English filmmaker can dull up high adventure. Stunning when you think about it, since this empire gave us Kipling and Stevenson and Haggard, and later Noel Coward (IN WHICH WE SERVE) and Hitchcock (NORTH BY NORTHWEST) and John Irvin (DOGS OF WAR) and Stephen Frears (THE HIT, DANGEROUS LIASONS, you name it); but it also gave us Lean (Lawrence of Ad Nausea) and Thompson (save us from GUNS OF NAVARONE) and all those mediocre 60s Bond directors, and this guy Hickox.
This movie seems better if you view it as a series of lovely paintings, like THE DUELISTS or BARRY LYNDON or HEAVEN'S GATE. DP Ousama Rawi and second unit director/DP Peter MacDonald enjoy the landscape of moving things, and are neither of them afraid to move the camera. Both favor a wide lens, vast perspectives reminiscent of nineteenth century landscape oils, but equally influenced by the high meridian of the Eastern traditions. The percentage of striking, well-orchestrated images is among the highest in any movie.
But these images are in aid of nothing because the movie has no heart. It's hard to care about characters who only mouth politics and jargon. Cy Endfield, who did such a wonderful job sustaining suspense and class commentary in ZULU, gets partial writing credit here but unfortunately was not allowed to helm. The relationships are thin, the characters familiar, the situations explored at travelogue depth. And the pace, while not exactly leaden, is no quick-step.
An old fashioned adventure, but not in a good John Boorman-Ronald Neame-Guy Hamilton way. More in a bad Andrew MacLaglen-Jack Smight-Anthony Asquith way. In fact, some of the best realizations of British Empire romance have come from Americans: Huston's MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, Stevens' GUNGA DIN, Rafelson's MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON.