Desert Warrior
The marketing touts Desert Warrior as the film to finally put Saudi Arabia on the map of global cinephilia. It certainly is the biggest.
In 2018, Saudi Arabia opened its first movie theaters in more than three decades. Just a few short years later, production began on the $150 million historical action film Desert Warrior in 2021. The first English-language film from the country’s flagship film producer, MBC Studios, features recognizable Hollywood faces Anthony Mackie and Ben Kingsley in two of the biggest roles, while also being helmed by Planet of the Apes veteran Rupert Wyatt. Coming to theaters six years after a long, strenuous, and controversial production, the marketing touts Desert Warrior as the film to finally put Saudi Arabia on the map of global cinephilia. It certainly is the biggest.
In a pre-Islamic 7th century Arabia, Princess Hind (Aiysha Hart) chooses to rebel instead of reducing herself to the captivity of the Sasanian Emperor Kisra (Kingsley) as his concubine. She escapes to the desert with her father, the recently deposed King Numan (Ghassan Massoud), and, with a team of bandits led by Jalabzeen (Sharlto Copley) on their tail, the former king and princess desperately solicit the help of the renegade though reserved bandit Hanzala (Mackie). The film’s undisputed best scene is its history-making climactic battle, a clash known to history as the Battle of Dhu Qar. With the Sasanians being a Persian empire and the historical battle taking place in what is today Southern Iraq, this is a somewhat interestingly timed release given the state of Arab-Iranian geopolitics. The Arab tribes unifying in resistance under Hind to resist a Persian tyrant is simultaneously inspiring and politically thorny. Iranian cultural critics have, unsurprisingly, criticized the movie as “historical revisionism.”
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