(2010) Romancing the dagger. Jake Gyllenhaal isn't my idea of an action hero, but then before Iron Man, neither was Robert Downey Jr. After his performance as Dastan (with a British accent), an orphan who becomes a Persian prince, in this Disney/Jerry Buckheimer-produced adventure/fantasy film, directed by Mike Newell from a screenplay by Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro, and Carlo Bernard, based on Jordan Mechner's video-game series, it's not his destiny to repeat.

When Persia was an empire, on the streets of Nasaf, King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) and his brother Nizam (Ben Kinsley) witness a courageous child emerge from the crowd; the king adopts the boy of noble character sans royal blood. Several years later, the youngest of three princes, Dastan, an adept acrobat, cleverly breaches the fortress walls of the holy city of Alamut within which a spy has reported to Nizam there are forges to make weapons for Persia's enemies.

Following a fierce fight to capture the city, Dastan comes into possession of a jeweled dagger given to Asoka by Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton). The eldest of the princes, Tus (Richard Coyle), who also initially provides narration, makes Dastan promise to kill the beautiful princess if the king denies him another bride.

Angered that no weapons have been found within the walls as proof of Alamut's treachery, King Sharaman rebukes Tus for his rashness and after mildly upbraiding Dastan ("A great man would have stopped what he knew to be wrong") rewards him with the prize of the princess. In appreciation, Dastan presents the king with a cloak as a gift, which Tus has provided him; but the cloth has been poisoned.

Fleeing with Tamina, for everyone assumes Dastan has murdered their sovereign, he discovers, when she also turns on him, that the dagger has magical properties. "Releasing the sand [in the hilt] turns back time," he says in amazement to Tamina: "And only the holder of the dagger is aware of what's happened. He can go back and forth and alter events, change time, and no one knows but him."

In order to avoid Persian patrols searching for him, Dastan reluctantly takes Tamina with him through the Valley of the Slaves where he encounters Sheik Amar (Alfred Molina) with his knife-wielding companion, the Ngbaka Seso (Steve Toussaint). After Dastan makes a deal with the small businessman, he's taken into Amar's notorious village to watch an ostrich race. "I crafted our lurid reputation," the sheik explains, "in order to fend off the most insidious evil that's been lurking in this forsaken country of ours - taxes."

In a devious move to recover the dagger in order to corrupt history and to deny Dastan any opportunity to defend himself by identifying King Sharaman's assassin, Hassansins with their visions and vipers, are hired to make certain the prince does not return to Alamut alive.

"No more games," says Dastan to Tamina, "no more lies." She finally reveals the source of the mystical device's power as the Sandglass of the gods, containing the Sands of Time, which if released would wipe humans off the face of the Earth in a tremendous sandstorm. Dastan counters Tamina's deterministic surrender to fate: "We make our own destiny, Princess."

This entertainment with its impossibilities made merely difficult and comedic occasions borrows from forerunners such as National Treasure and Indiana Jones. On another level, just beneath the sands of the surface of this tale of the Middle East, slithers a crude political commentary of more recent events. The Persian Empire once encompassed Iraq and Iran; Alamut was attacked on false pretenses of producing threatening weapons, and yet a weapon of mass destruction was there after all. Sheik Amar (associated with anti-tax conservatives) must choose between conscience (as represented by Seso) and greed similar to the dilemma before Republicans of deciding between country and self-interest.

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Copyright © 2011 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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