Photo courtesy of Miramax Films Heath Ledger battles Sudanese rebels, sweltering desert heat and his own conscience.

From the very first frame, "The Four Feathers" has the look of a modern classic. It's filmed in super-widescreen, everyone is dressed up in elaborate period clothing and there's a general sense that something big is happening. Let the epic begin.

The film is set around the time the British Empire really got going with its stranglehold on the globe, but while they were still doing it in little sail boats. The boys playing rugby in the opening scene turn out to be officers-in-training, and among them is our hero Heath Ledger as Harry Faversham, brilliant but modest with a killer smile and nice teeth.

Sadly, Harry resigns his commission once he gets wind that his company is about to be sent off to war in the Sudan.

Apparently, and this is from Harry himself, this decision is born of pure cowardice. To show their appreciation, each of his friends, including his fiancŽ Ethne (Kate Hudson), send him a white feather in a little box. This means they think he is a wuss and don't want to hang out with him anymore.

So they all go off to war and Harry stays behind, now estranged from everyone he knows, including his father who won't speak to him. So, after a few weeks rotting away in a festering den of guilt, Harry picks up and sails to the Sudan to help his friends.

OK. So that's pretty much the setup. You know how it ends. Let's just say it's like when you play a country song backwards.

But admittedly, it's all pretty entertaining. The pictures are pretty, the obstacles daunting, the hero charming yet admirably determined.

It's kind of a template script though: Everyone's favorite white man (Harry saves some whores as one of his first deeds as an adventurer) finds his Man Friday, a.k.a. everyone's favorite black savage sidekick in the desert, proceeding to live through ridiculously difficult trials like crossing a desert alone, learning Arabic between scenes and surviving a massacre, only to say something like "I'm a fool" when he discovers that Ethne has been writing letters to his best friend. Welcome to Sudan 90210.

Let's not forget Harry's disguise (so he can blend with the Arab population). Two words: "John Walker." Seriously. The spitting image.

The film's race consciousness is astoundingly juvenile. The bad guys (whose sides of the story we never hear) are composed of everyone from loin-clothed, war-painted black people to turban-wearing Arabs, to what looks like a band of sombrero-wearing Mexican bandits who wander around canyons hunched over with rifles.

Then there's Ethne. She's beautiful. That's all we ever hear about her. The guys turn to each other every so often and say, "Hey, she really is beautiful."

It's fun to mock the little things, but really, it's a decent movie. It's been done though, and with a lot more skill and understanding than "Four Feathers" provides. If you think the story looks interesting, watch "Lawrence of Arabia" instead. It's a hundred million times better.