This film deserves a second chance.

Rating: 9/10 (24 October 2002)

A difficult film to fully appreciate the first time around because of its poor editing, it nevertheless deserves multiple viewings. The story has two unique elements that alone make it worth watching: a handsome Muslim hero, and a cast of historically accurate Aryan warriors as his friends. These two things of course being an extreme rarity in that the concept of either Muslim or Aryan warriors as good-guy heroes seems to go against the dictums of Hollywood. The film's best attribute however, is that if you search beneath the surface it actually has some interesting things to say about the power of language and especially the written word as it relates to the remembrance of greatness. Thereby, in a clever way, also making a commentary on the film medium itself as scripts are chosen or rejected by Hollywood, not for quality, but for what perspectives of greatness are deemed worthy of remembrance (and exploitation) and what perspectives should be censored and forgotten.