Reviewed by Guy Clapperton
Stars Peter O’Toole, Simon Ward, Burt Lancaster, Bob Hoskins, Denholm Elliot | Written by Cy Endfield
UK certification PG | UK RRP £15.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 115 minutes | Directed by Douglas Hickox
There was a trend for a certain sort of movie making in the 1970s. It would look as though a director or writer had picked up their contact book, called a load of actors, asked them to come and do their party pieces without straining too much and put the result on screen. Usually these would be British actors in a film about the army – The Wild Geese is a good example of this sort of thing at its height, a jolly enough star-studded thing.
Zulu Dawn is one of the later examples of this sort of movie and it looks as tired as you might expect. The usual actorly suspects in this case include Simon Ward and Peter O’Toole, who’ve clearly been starching their upper lips for the occasion. Sir John Mills is in there with a cameo and Burt Lancaster is around to guarantee American funding, brandishing a fearsome Irish accent. There are a handful of newer stars than would normally have been in this sort of film. Bob Hoskins is prominent early on, as is Phil Daniels.
The historically accurate plot can be dealt with quickly: the British, occupying Africa, demand that the Zulu Chief stops behaving like a Barbarian and killing people. He refuses to obey British law on the reasonable grounds that he’s not British, the Brits try to quell his rebelliousness and get massacred for their pains. Subsequently, in the events outlined in an earlier and better film, Zulu, the Brits strike back in the battle of Roark’s drift. This film focuses on the British defeat.
It’s with the story that the first of the film’s weaknesses emerge, in that I’ve just described the whole thing. There are no sub-plots, no room for characters to grow and flesh out. “Linear” is too broad a word to describe the structure of this movie. Early on there are hints that it might be interesting; Simon Ward’s character comments that he wasn’t sure he was on the right side, and Burt Lancaster’s soldier looks set to get into a power struggle with O’Toole, but these and other strands are forgotten quickly.
What we’re left with is some solid, reliable but stock character acting and some inspiringly beautiful scenery in a wholly predictable film. It tries to be even handed at first by showing Zulu atrocities as well as those from the English; in an early scene the Zuli Chief is encourages his people to revel in a ritual duel and the death of one of the combatants. This could have been interesting but as with the other more thoughtful strands, it’s ditched in favour of linearity and spectacle. The spectacle itself depends mostly on the scenery and in this case Africa delivers magnificently. The climactic battle scene is surprisingly alienating, however. With a view to the family demographic likely to be watching, the producers tone the bloodletting down so the deaths of so many characters are too clean so they don’t have much impact.
The film was made at a time when people might have expected a little less stiff upper lip and a bit more realism and/or depth; it’s at the tail end of a particular style of movie making and it shows. It’s unfortunate – with a little extra pushing at some of the ideas hinted at early on, and without sacrificing any of the spectacle, it could have been more of a last hurrah than a final whimper.
EXTRAS * Just the trailer