It is a story almost as old as time – but enough on the creative differences that have conspired to keep this ambitious western Middle East of film screens since its production four years ago. Looking at him now and knowing what we know about shooting conditions, it’s a miracle Desert warrior There is at all, regardless of some of the extraordinary images captured by director Rupert Wyatt and his director of photography Guillermo Garza. In fact, it is not immediately clear that it was a troubled production, but what starts with a very lean and entertaining film B gradually becomes a slog; After setting up a very simple scenario, almost almost Sergio Leone – a bandit (Antony Mackie) and a bonus hunter (Sharlto Copley) – Wyatt’s film becomes a sort of stodgy, sprawling, feminist, pre -Islamic Ghandi.
We can only speculate, but he believes that this two -hour cut is something of a compromise, and, if this is the case, it is one that perfectly expresses what is happening when too many people bring their concept of action film to the table. There are times when you can see Éclairs de Inspiration unexpected, and there are echoes of the John Ford monument valley in the location work. There is even a small Kurosawa – of all the stages of his career – in the feudal configuration; While the emperor decadent Kisra (Ben Kingsley) holds the court, his enemies are banned. It would seem to be the film that Wyatt decided to make, and it would have been a good ‘one.
And, for a while, it works. Mackie’s bandit is the film of the nameless man, and we find him in the desert with his camel when history begins and a mysterious old man enters the frame. “Tell me who you are,” says the bandit. “Over time,” says the stranger, who promises gold and a dagger encrusted with jewelry in exchange for help. It turns out that he is the former Numan King (Ghassan Massoud), who was deposited by the emperor Kisra and escaped with his daughter, the Hind princess (Aaysha Hart). If they come back, Numan will be killed and Hind will be forced to become the concubine of Kisra, which is why the emperor sends the cruel mercenary Jalabzeen (Copley) to bring them back.
The bandit takes the pair in the territory of Shaybani, where he is treated with suspicion, insofar as he is considered a traitor and condemned to die. Hind helps him escape, and this could be the exact point that the tension begins to dissipate. On the one hand, Hind notes that Numan left in the morning, having returned to the city of his own will. Needless to say, it doesn’t end well. Nevertheless, Hind decides that she must follow her traces, recruiting the bandit as a traveling companion. “You will drive faster alone,” he said. “We will go up further together,” she says. (Yes, that’s this kind of script.)
So here we are, and on the way back, Hind becomes possessed of the kind of mystical messianic qualities which are not very seen outside a Dune Film as its quest brings together support, galvanizing the Put-andpon castes in the region to meet while a traveling card of the country fills the screen. (Yes, this is this kind of film.) Before knowing, Desert warrior has become a war film, and quite spectacular to that, with elephants and wolves (the horrible CGIs, the spirit) which seem to come from a meeting all the hands on what a film with a budget of $ 150 million could be missing that what he could really need.
But make the film Desert warrior Transforms at this stage, you need a serious star power, and although the Arab distribution is particularly strong, the tracks need this additional song that the film simply does not have. Even the Kingsley, generally reliable, cannot bring much more to the party, it is clearly not enough to spend for a few days of work to have a comfortable seat and evil tachill in the much less interesting studio scenes of the film. To make things worse, the two most engaging characters in the film – the bandit and Jalabzeen – become so regularly sidelined that it is difficult to become too excited when the inevitable force test occurs, simply because we have not spent enough time with one or the other to care.
Anyway, all this is coming out, and the film brings you home with the useful message that there are many ways to fight a battle. “There are also many ways to sing a desert song, and it is in favor of the film that, but for perhaps a single heat stroke, it does not attempt compare Lawrence of Arabia. Revealing, however, David Lean’s film costs even less than Desert warrior In today’s money, and perhaps the lesson learned here is that the difference between a real cinematic masterpiece and a decent Sky television pilot directed by Ridley Scott is not necessarily determined by the amount of the money you are launching.
Title: Desert warrior
Festival: Zurich (first gala)
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Screenwriter: Rupert Wyatt, Erica Beeney, David Self, Gary Ross
Casting: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Sharto Copley, Ghassan Massoud, Sami Boujila, Géza Rohrig, Ben Kingsley
Sales: MBC studios
Operating time: 1 h 54 minutes
