Action-packed but one-sided

Rating: Null/10 (26 December 2001)

Despite fine performances, exciting action and authentic setting, I feel this is an over-rated movie, and it makes somewhat embarrassing viewing these days. The true story of how 100 British - mostly Welsh - troops resisted 4000 Zulu warriors at Rorke's Drift in Natal in 1879 deserved a better screenplay than this gungho, Western-style one-dimensional treatment. There is little character development - indeed, less than in most Hollywood Westerns - and what development there is often makes little sense. In particular, Michael Caine's Lieut Gonville Bromhead is depicted as a cool, professional officer one minute, and a rather helpless incompetent booby the next. We learn nothing about the background of Lieut John Chard (Stanley Baker) and are left baffled as to why an engineer, there to build a bridge, should prove to be such an effective commander in his first engagement. Though early on it looks as though some love-interest might be provided by Ulla Jacobsson as the daughter of the local missionary (Jack Hawkins), she and her father soon fade from the scene.
But the main fault is that there is simply no explanation of how and why this stand against overwhelming odds was accomplished. We just see wave after wave of Zulus killing or wounding only a few defenders, while their own dead pile up. I suspect that, despite the Zulus being shown with rifles in one scene, the answer is simply that spears could not prevail against guns. It is true that the Zulus are portrayed as powerful and courageous; but as with the Native Americans in Westerns, this is less to increase our respect for the natives themselves, as for the white men withstanding their onslaught. There is certainly no real attempt to provide the Zulu point of view of the episode; and only the most oblique references to the historical context.
On the positive side, almost all the performances are convincing - especially, in addition to the principals, those of Nigel Greene as an imperious Colour Sergeant, James Booth as a malingering Private turned hero, and Patrick Magee as a blood-covered Surgeon; there are some great shots of the warriors drawn up on the brow of the hill; and the train-like sound they make with their spears against their shields, and their chanting, are unforgettable.