To know is to understand. Each culture across the planet has so much world history they possess, that not enough people know about. I know very little about Arabian history outside of Aladdin, the prophet Mohammad, and modern day politics. Desert Warrior tries to bring one of their great stories to the big screen. It doesn’t quite come together as I hoped, but it’s a promising start, one that creates a new world of stories in a new medium for a place where humanity effectively began. And Captain America is there too for some reason!
Around 600 AD, the Sasanian Empire led by Emperor Kisra (Ben Kingsley) tried to take power over all the nomadic cultures, supposedly by making the kings give up their daughters as concubines. King Numan (Ghassan Massoud) refused, going on the run with his daughter, Princess Hind (Aiysha Hart). A bandit, Hanzala (Anthony Mackie) spots them being chased by the Emperor’s guards, specifically the vicious Jalabzeen (Sharlto Copley). Sensing an opportunity, Hanzala bargains with Numan and Hind: he’ll take them to a neighbor, Hani’s (Sami Bouajila) tribe, in exchange for gold.
And so we get set on an epic hero’s journey. Cinematographer Guillermo Garza takes advantage of a budget very few films get, and makes Desert Warrior look as breathtaking as possible. Not since probably Lawrence of Arabia or Star Wars has the desert looked so grand. The oranges, reds, and browns, conjured during sunrises and sunsets will take your breath away. There’s many shots of Anthony Mackie staring over a gorgeous desert plain of chases happening, with the sand spinning up in their wake. And I haven’t even gotten to the action yet. There’s camels chasing horses, camels chasing camels, horses chasing camels, and every other iteration you can find. We get a couple sword fights along the way to. But all of it is building up to the final 20 minutes. What happens there is spectacle of the highest order: a battle of charges, counter charges, actions and reactions, that looks stupendous and big. What I liked most about what Rupert Wyatt contributed was the tactical showcase: as our little ragtag group of rebels was far outmatched by the Emperor’s Army, but used clever techniques to eventually win the day.
Unfortunately titanic storytelling can lead to titanic battles behind the scenes. Desert Warrior had those and then some. Rupert Wyatt admitted he was temporarily removed from the project, though eventually came back. There are also a few writers on this movie, and you know, the entire country of Saudi Arabia, giving notes on what they see. All those inputs make Desert Warrior too disjointed to come together. As compromise, we get pieces of all of them thrown into a bloated story blender held together by scotch tape. Everyone is basically a broad archetype: the scared princess who has to learn to lead, the nomad who learns to be a part of a community, a sacrificial old leader to mentor the young leader then eventually die, the cruel military leader who underestimates his foes, etc. We keep adding on more and more characters too, each of which should probably get 5-15 minutes apiece to set up before the big battle at the end, but instead we quickly rush them into the proceedings, making them uninteresting other than outfit differences so we can tell combatants apart. The biggest suffering is the editing: firing Wyatt forced him to do his best, but even his cut you can see the bad dubbing and continuity errors (like say, a giant elephant charge that is never addressed again?) that hinder Desert Warrior’s success chances.
But for me, there’s more good than bad here. I guess I’m rooting for something new and interesting, which Desert Warrior is at its best. I’d like to see more tales please Saudi Arabia? If it’s any incentive, Iran’s movie business is WAY better than yours; how about a friendly battle of creativity where no one gets hurt, and everyone wins cause we see great movies from your countries? I like that ending a lot.