Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Khartoum Blu-ray Movie Review

"I've learned to be unafraid of death but never to be unafraid of failure."

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown February 8, 2024

If you like your golden age historical epics slow and deliberate, then the 1966 Charlton Heston vehicle, Khartoum, is for you. With Lawrence Olivier in uncomfortably heavy-handed brown face, endless expositional conversations about what will and has transpired, thousands of extras (in true Old Hollywood style), and Heston lurching between careful syllable by syllable emphasis and sudden melodramatic fury, it's an enormous, for the time startlingly expensive film of yesteryear; an impressive production by any standards, but a box office flop that, in 1966 and especially in 2023, is paced like a more meaningful four-hour Oscar winner rather than a plodding two-and-a-half-hour march through the desert, led by the oh so convincingly British... uh, Charlton Heston. (Sarcasm kids, it's what's for dinner.) Khartoum is better viewed as a transitional curiosity between the era of old, graceful, not-a-care-in-the- world-plotted epics and the new, grittier historical war films that would continue to evolve throughout the 1970s and '80s. It's dry and dull -- more so than you can imagine -- but it may also leave you nostalgic for the grand movies of the '50s and '60s, when spectacle was the sheer size and scope of a picture rather than the rawness, realism and excitement of the battle scenes.

"I regard myself as a religious man, yet belong to no church. I'm an able soldier, yet abhor armies. I've been introduced to hundreds of women but never married. In other words, no one's ever talked me into anything."

After an Egyptian army, commanded by British officers, is destroyed in a battle in the Sudan in the 1880s, the British government is in a quandary. It does not want to commit a British military force to a foreign war but they have a commitment to protect the Egyptians in Khartoum. They decide to ask General Charles "Chinese" Gordon (Charlton Heston, stoic until he cracks as always), something of a folk hero in the Sudan as he had cleared the area of the slave trade, to arrange for the evacuation. Gordon agrees but also decides to defend the city against the forces of the Mahdi (Laurence Olivier) -- "The Expected One" -- and tries to force the British to commit troops. Filmed in anamorphic 70mm, directed by Basil Dearden and written by Robert Ardrey, the film also stars Richard Johnson, Ralph Richardson, Alexander Knox, Johnny Sekka, Nigel Green, Michael Hordern, Douglas Wilmer, Edward Underdown, Ralph Michael, Peter Arne, Hugh Williams, Zia Mohyeddin and Alan Tilvern.

Click here to read Jeffrey Kauffman's 2014 review of the film, of which he says: "Heston does rather nuanced and appealing work here, even if the film’s version of Gordon strays rather notably from the actual record." Adding, Khartoum is often stunningly gorgeous to watch but is dramatically rather inert."

Khartoum Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Khartoum is backed by an excellent 1080p/AVC-encoded video transfer that only suffers from one relatively slight problem: artificial sharpening. It certainly isn't bad; most viewers won't even notice. But the signs are there, specifically minor edge halos and blink-and-you'll-miss-em grain irregularities (mostly visible when actors stand prominently in front of the bright blue desert sky). You can see as much when analyzing the screenshots accompanying this review. However, and this is a big however, the positives far, far outweigh this last-generation issue, and for an early 2010s remaster, it's quite a restrained issue. Colors are gorgeous, as are primaries. Reds pop in the middle of the sand-swept battles, blues all but erupt, rich browns, crimson and black levels are lovely, and contrast remains vibrant and consistent throughout. Moreover, delineation is far better than I expected, as is detail (artificial sharpening or no). Grain is refined, textures are exacting and revealing, edge definition is razor sharp, and battle scenes -- even wider shots that showcase hundreds of troops -- fare wonderfully, with each soldier clearly and precisely defined. There are very few soft shots, and only a handful of nighttime scenes suffer from a dip in visual quality, which presumably traces back to the source elements and the original photography. Last and least, there's a small amount of print specks and other marks that appear now and again. Fortunately, there isn't any significant banding, blocking or other such anomalies to report, making Khartoum one of the more impressive Blu-ray releases from Sandpiper (who doesn't do in-house remastering or restoration work), a distributor that isn't exactly known for acquiring the most striking transfers.

Khartoum Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Khartoum's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix is a solid addition to Sandpiper's release, even if it's missing something more akin to the original 70mm 6-track audio. Dialogue is always intelligible and perfectly prioritized, voices are never improperly buried in the sands and sounds of battle, and Frank Cordell's looming, desperately epic score rings true. Sound effects have the patented studio-canned tone and tenor of any old historical drama, but fans of the era won't bat an eye. No issues or complaints here.

Khartoum Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The 2014 Screen Archives Entertainment Exclusive Blu-ray included an audio commentary and more. The Sandpiper edition, sadly, does not.

Khartoum Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Khartoum isn't going to move you or sweep you away or transport you to another time and place. It's a lesser '60s historical epic; lesser because it's so stuffy and meticulous that it borders on downright boring. Still, there are charms to be had and enormous scope to enjoy. Fans of Heston will no doubt grin ear to ear, as this is one of the most "Heston" roles of his career, even if you'll soon forget it. Thankfully, Sandpiper's Blu-ray release is more memorable, with an AV presentation that impresses again and again.