Zulu Dawn

This is actually a prequel to my beloved Zulu. Cy Endfield, the director of the original great film, sat down at his typewriter this time and decided to show us who fought who, how, with whom and against whom in the Battle of Isandhlwana, the one whose aftermath we see at the beginning of Zulu. Douglas Hickox took over the direction, and the cast is truly stellar. There were many more extras this time around and in fact much more of everything... So what the hell went wrong? Mr. Endfield will forgive me, but it's his script that's at fault. He took care to fill the story with as many real characters as possible, but he forgot to describe them, to characterize them, to bring them closer to us. So by the time the battle that the viewer has been anticipating since the opening credits begins, a little over seventy minutes have passed, during which an awfully large number of people are talking to each other, who have the faces of Burt Lancaster, Peter O'Toole, Nigel Davenport, Bob Hoskins, and if it weren't for the fact that they are played by these greats, we would have no idea who they are. The film soon becomes uncontrolled chaos (not unlike that battle), and any viewer who keeps track of when the army split into parts, where any of its parts are, and who the Zulus are attacking has my admiration. Yes, when the sought-after and, I must say, well-filmed skirmish (which, of course, is nothing like the aforementioned 1964 film) begins, it's all gone... But that's not what a good film is. I don't even want to mention how the English are portrayed as heroic and the Greeks and the blacks as the worst kind of scum.__P.S. Elmer Bernstein has not matched John Barry with a single note.__P.P.S. Zulu is unbeatable, in case anyone doubts it. (02/05/2012)

This is no Bondarchuk in Africa in the end. Hickox has no idea how to sell his charges of tens of thousands visually. Apart from about four shots, the viewer has absolutely no idea that, instead of the usual couple of hundred of extras, there are enough here to fill Wembley Stadium. If they had shot a scene from above to gobsmack the viewer with those huge crowds would have been a big help, but it wouldn’t have saved the whole movie. In any case the movie would lack suspense, pace or at least a hint of tension. Although it helps to bring across the idea of a reconstruction of historical events, the movie is made so coldly and didactically that it is overall detrimental. The unimpressive music doesn’t help either. However, despite what I wrote above, this could have been much better, Waterloo being a perfect example. (02/28/2010)