Just…long…

Run of the mill historical adventure yarn set on India’s North-West Frontier during the British Raj. Yul Brynner plays rebel tribesman Sultan who is pursued by Brit copper Freddy Young (Trevor Howard), who while chasing down the enigmatic rebel comes to respect him and is unwilling to execute the justice requested by his superiors.

The intent to make an historical epic of some worth, that is based on facts, is honourable. It looks nice with an authentic feel to the surroundings of the story, if only it wasn’t so laboured, so full of inane posturing and poorly scripted characters, then it might just about crawl its way to being just above average.

It rarely excites, director Ken Annakin unable to inject life into the more perkier aspects of plotting, and a cast that also features Harry Andrews, Charlotte Rampling, Virginia North and Andrew Keir, aren’t tasked with much more than reading their lines efficiently. All in all, not very convincing away form the location photography and costuming. 4/10