Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: DESERT WARRIOR [Red Sea International Film Festival 2025 - Jeddah, Saudi Arabia]
"Desert Warrior", the long gestating Arabian epic, that began shooting back when the RSIFF first premiered in 2021 finally came home with its Middle East premiere at the Red Sea International Film Festival. The film, having shot in Neom, is sprawling and some of its images and sequences are unmistakable. Set in the seventh century, it still does feel surprising modern. Headlined by Anthony Mackie as a bandit, the film is more the journey of Alysha Hart as Princess Hind. While it does take a little while to really get going, it does bring to mind the broad appeal of something like "Lawrence Of Arabia" but with tinges of "The Mummy" and "Mad Max" thrown in. Director Rupert Wyatt known for "Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes" does understand his canvas and uses these images of the stark and vast landscape of Saudi Arabia which have never been really seen on a production of this size before. The swooping flying shots during some of the action sequences (like one where Mackie and Hart's character escape on horse back) are stunning. The story is really of a disavowed king (played the wonderful Ghassan Massoud) trying to protect his daughter from becoming a concubine of the Emperor (played briefly and almost at a distance by Ben Kingsley). Massoud brings the weight that needs to sustain Hart's journey. Hart as Hind does an admirable job and the way Wyatt and writer David Self integrate the motivations and the disagreements between the tribes works very well and yet is very specific in each one's identity. Some of the progressions bring to mind of course "Dune" because the landscape inherently points to that as well as the importance of water.
What allows the other side to work is Sharlto Copley as Jalabzeen, a brutalist soldier who has been tasked by the Emperor in his own peril to bring back Hind as his concubine. Copley disappears under his beard and an accent but one gets the pain he is in but also the reality that this is who he is and what he needs to do. The film also doesn't pull back on the brutality and violence but does it in such a way that is not so obtrusive but just effective enough to give the film an edge. As the film pushes to its climax, Wyatt uses more CG but not much. The film, to its credit, keeps a lot of the visuals practical and there are some phenomenal cinematic moments and shots to be sure. "Desert Warrior" wants to have an epic canvas and it does. It wants to have resonant themes and it does. Its acting is intense but not overwhelmingly so though Massoud and Copley stand out. Hart has presence but again some of the elements of modern day sensibilities seem to integrate it so it never quite feels utterly transformative. But that said, creating this kind of epic on new cinematic soil with a sense of the bold, wonder, drama and even a little bit of humor, is a great thing. B+
By Tim Wassberg
