My brief review of the film

Rating: Null/10 (16 June 2005)

Reasonably well made on an appropriate budget, the film uses good locations, has a great set design, an exciting score as well as some commendable camera-work, but it is overall not quite as good as perhaps it could have been. Some of the sequences are a bit clichéd, and there is a severe lack of background information, but the biggest problem comes from something that would have not been a problem at the time of the film's release. Nowadays, the typical viewer is educated to sympathise with the Zulus, rather than the invading British, and in the film, the Zulus are all one dimensional and the British characters are not developed too well themselves, which makes it a bit hard to know who to sympathise with. Towards the end, the fighting sequences also become quite monotonous, but there are some parts that are interesting. It is a quite well made film overall and Caine is quite effective in a very early screen role, but it is not near perfect, and to a modern audience there is a question of how effective it would be.