Ultra-realistic...in parts

Rating: 6/10 (11 December 2011)

Ultra-authentic sets, locations, costumes but it's not complete. The characters seem merely play-actors. This is perhaps due to John Prebbles' script. The film never really escapes the feeling of being a treatise on the arrogance of imperialism. Patrick Magee as Surgeon Reynolds gets to utter the Author's Message when futility laboring over a dying man on the operating table he says to the British commanding officer: "Damn you Chard, damn all you butchers!" As far as the controversy regarding the film's depiction of period facial hair goes, I'll toss in my two cents: too much on the Zulus and not enough on the British... but what do I know? As if all that were not enoughÂ… "And introducing Michael Cain!"