The 13th Warrior

• 1. Introduction

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  The 13th Warrior, a 1999 action film directed by John McTiernan, grossed 61 million dollars worldwide and still became the biggest box-office bomb of its year. It tells of a poet from Baghdad who is swept into a war among Norse warriors. The film did not simply disappear. Over the years it gathered a devoted cult following, and some credit it with pioneering a Muslim hero in Hollywood blockbusters. How does a film that lost so much money earn that kind of loyalty? What went wrong behind the cameras? And what did the people who made it think of the result? The answers begin with a court poet who is sent far from home because of a romance he should never have started.

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• 2. Exile to the Volga

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  Ahmed ibn Fahdlan opens the story as a court poet serving the Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir in Baghdad. An amorous encounter with the wife of an influential noble ends that comfortable life. His punishment is exile dressed up as an honor, and he is sent off as an "ambassador" to the Volga Bulgars.

  Michael Crichton's 1976 novel Eaters of the Dead supplied the foundation for the film. Antonio Banderas plays the poet, with Diane Venora and Omar Sharif in the cast. The credits spell the hero's name Ahmed ibn Fahdlan, though the character is also written Ahmad ibn Fadlan.

  Ahmed travels with Melchisidek, an old friend of his father. Their caravan is attacked by Tatar raiders, and Norsemen appear and drive the attackers off. Ahmed takes refuge in the Norse settlement on the Volga River. Talk between the two groups becomes possible only because Herger, one of the Norsemen, happens to speak Greek, and Melchisidek helps pass the words along. Herger's translations soon reveal that the celebration around the travelers is not what it seems.

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• 3. Ship, Slave, and Summons

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  Herger explains that the Norse celebration is the lead-up to a funeral for their recently deceased king. He also introduces one of the dead king's sons, Buliwyf. Ahmed and Melchisidek then watch Buliwyf kill his own brother in a fight. It was self-defense, and it makes Buliwyf the heir apparent.

  The king is cremated in the traditional way, aboard a Viking ship that is set adrift. A female slave who offers to sacrifice herself goes with him, to accompany him to Valhalla, the Norse afterlife.

  The next day, the young Prince Wulfgar arrives in the camp with a request for Buliwyf. His father, King Hrothgar, needs help because his lands in the far north are under attack. The enemy is an ancient evil so frightening that even the bravest warriors dare not name it.

  A völva, a wisewoman called the "angel of death", delivers a prophecy. The mission will succeed only if thirteen warriors face the danger, and the thirteenth must not be a Norseman. Ahmed is recruited automatically and against his will. He must now find a place among men who have already begun to laugh at his horse.

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• 4. Earning a Place

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  The Norsemen treat Ahmed with indifference at first, and they mock his smaller Arabian horse. Respect arrives in pieces. He picks up their language quickly by translating it in his head into Arabic. He shows his skill as a rider, and he can write, which few around him can do.

  Buliwyf is a polyglot himself, and he asks Ahmed to teach him the Arabic script. The lessons build goodwill between the two men. Buliwyf also comes to see Ahmed's analytic habits as an asset for the quest ahead. Ahmed will need every one of these strengths when the group reaches Hrothgar's kingdom.

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• 5. The Wendol

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  In Hrothgar's kingdom, the warriors confirm that their enemy is the ancient Wendol. These fiends arrive with the mist to kill and to take human heads. Inside a raided cabin, the group finds a Venus figurine, said to represent the "Mother of the Wendol". On the first night, the warriors Hyglak and Ragnar die.

  After a string of clashes, Buliwyf's band decides that the Wendol are human cannibals. They wear bear costumes, live as bears do, and believe themselves to be bears.

  Skeld, Halga, Roneth, and Rethel fall as well, and the defenders' positions are all but impossible to hold. Another völva in the village tells the survivors to track the Wendol to their lair. They must destroy the leaders, who are the Mother of the Wendol and a warlord wearing "the horns of power".

  Buliwyf and the remaining warriors slip into the Wendol caves and kill the Mother. A claw on her hand, dipped in poison, scratches deeply across Buliwyf's shoulder. Ahmed and the last of the Norse warriors escape the caves without Helfdane, who chooses to stay behind and fight.

  Back in the village, the survivors prepare for a last stand. Before the battle, Buliwyf staggers outside and inspires the warriors with a Viking prayer for the honored dead who will enter Valhalla. He kills the Wendol warlord and defeats the enemy. Then he succumbs to the poison.

  Four of the thirteen survive: Herger, Weath, Edgtho, and Haltaf. They stand with Ahmed at Buliwyf's royal funeral. Ahmed then returns to his homeland, grateful to the Norsemen for helping him "become a man and a useful servant of God".

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• 6. Reshoots and Recuts

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  Production began in the summer of 1997, and the film was first called Eaters of the Dead, like Crichton's novel. Test audiences did not react well to the initial cut, and the film went through several re-edits. Crichton took over as director himself because of that poor reception. The release date was pushed back by more than a year.

  The film was recut and given a new ending and a new score. The title became The 13th Warrior. The first score came from Graeme Revell and featured Lisa Gerrard, the singer of Dead Can Dance. Crichton rejected it. Jerry Goldsmith, Crichton's usual collaborator, composed the replacement.

  The changes reached the cast list too. Kristen Cloke appears uncredited as the Mother of the Wendol, replacing Susan Willis. Willis's name stayed in the closing credits even though she is absent from the final cut.

  John McTiernan has since defended the film. He says the finished product was not entirely different from what he shot. He has also said he originally wanted to make it with Michael Keaton in mind for the lead role.

  The budget started at around 85 million dollars and reportedly climbed to 100 million before principal photography ended. With all the reshoots and promotion, the total was rumored to reach as high as 160 million dollars. Set against the weak box-office return, the loss was estimated at 70-130 million dollars.

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• 7. Mixed Verdicts

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  Buena Vista Film Sales pre-sold the film internationally. When it opened in the United States, it took the No. 2 spot for the weekend, behind The Sixth Sense.

  Rotten Tomatoes lists a 33% approval rating based on 88 reviews. Its consensus reads: "Atmospheric, great sets and costumes, but thin plot." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave an average grade of B-minus, on a scale running from A+ to F.

  Roger Ebert gave the film one and a half stars out of four. He wrote that it "lumbers from one expensive set-piece to the next without taking the time to tell a story that might make us care."

  James Berardinelli went the other way and gave three stars out of four. He called it "a solid offering" that "delivers an exhilarating 100 minutes". Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly rated it A-minus. She described it as "the most unexpectedly audacious, exhilarating, and wildly creative adventure thriller I have seen in ages".

  One member of the cast took the outcome far harder than any critic did.

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• 8. Omar Sharif Walks Away

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  Omar Sharif was so disappointed by how the production turned out that he temporarily retired from film acting. He later explained his reasoning. "After my small role in The 13th Warrior, I said to myself, 'Let us stop this nonsense, these meal tickets that we do because it pays well.'"

  He set himself a strict condition. He would return only for a "stupendous film" that he loved and that made him want to leave home. Of the experience he said, "Bad pictures are very humiliating, I was really sick." He added, "It is terrifying to have to do the dialogue from bad scripts."

  The film he waited for did not arrive quickly. Sharif took no role in another major film until Monsieur Ibrahim in 2003.

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