Khartoum - 3 stars out of 5 stars

Released in 1966 and running 134 minutes this is, for the most part, a forgotten movie and with some reason.We take 2 stars off because its a rather "talky"film without much substance for being so long.Even the music score is uninspired.So why then should you see it or even care? For me only 2 reasons and not enough to own it,just to see it.First,today we talk of not wanting dictators to kill their own subjects in a massacre.As luck would have it,today Libya's Gaddafi  was killed and this movie is about a Islamic fanatic and the man who opposed him in the Sudan about 175 years ago leading to a religious massacre.Second,Heston as Gen. Charles 'Chinese' Gordon and Olivier as The Mahdi,two very different yet very much the same fanatics.We know this happened but we don't know if it was as the film shows.Still its a grand epic just not as good as others Heston did nor as compelling as  films like Lawrence of Arabia.But it does show to remind us that the crusades were not fiction and and Islam and Christianity are not friendly towards each other.Just the talk does overwhelm the lack of action for such grand story.No trailer could be found but a URL to one of the few action scenes is below the pix.See it for a historical focus only for as action it disappoints.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDkcG5whNQo