The Duellists

A curious mixture. This British film, based on a Conrad story, received heavy US financial backing and stars two Americans conspicuously at odds with their British supporting cast. The film-makers dubiously opt for a kind of Napoleonic Western: a tale of honour and obsession with one French officer pursued down the years by another. Keitel struggles gamely against a wooden Carradine, but the American influences further dislocate a script that delivers little observation, psychological or social, on their running feud. Instead, the film concentrates on the look of things, backed up by heavy research into contemporary French fashions. Scott, a name in TV commercials making his first feature, brings little overall thrust, working instead in short bursts.