The Four Feathers

At the end of the nineteenth century a British officer resigns his commission just before his regiment is sent to Sudan. Three friends and his fiancee each send him a white feather as a mark of cowardice. He travels to Sudan under a false identity and tries to save them from a distance. The film takes the question of cowardice and courage seriously but never questions the colonial war itself; the narrative largely uses the desert and its people as scenery for a test of character. Shekhar Kapur directed, with Heath Ledger in the lead. It is one of many adaptations of A. E. W. Mason's novel. Before watching: the character played by Djimon Hounsou is written with no purpose beyond protecting the British hero, and the film was criticised for it. Watch it with that in view.