And don't slouch when you're watching this film!!

Rating: Null/10 (25 September 2002)

Ahhh, Zulu! The all-time favourite Sunday afternoon lounge-room general's movie! There's nothing quite like the sense of occasion of gathering some friends around the TV with rations and beers on hand, cranking up the video (or DVD) and settling in for an afternoon of pith helmets, cordite smoke and troop dispositions. After almost 40 years, Zulu still has the power to send chills up the spine with its windswept silences before the inevitable attacks, its chilling bursts of hand-to-hand combat, and its grim depiction of English stubbornness (or 'duty') in an alien environment. While Caine's Lieutenant Bromhead comes across as perhaps a touch too effete, every other performance is noteworthy for its individual qualities; Baker provides a wonderfully stolid, jut-jawed leading role, Nigel Green is unforgettable as everyone's favourite colour sergeant-cum-surrogate dad, and Jack Hawkins is also memorable as the well-intentioned (i.e. meddling pain-in-the-neck) cleric. Also noteworthy is the presence of future Inkatha party (and Zulu) leader Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, rehearsing no doubt for the imagined future revolution in South Africa!
While Zulu can perhaps be viewed as a homage to warriors of both sides, it is obvious now where the filmmakers expected their viewers' sympathies to lie. At the end of the film, "a bayonet, with a bit of guts behind it" has saved the British soldiers for another day, while piles of the depersonalised Zulu fighters lie at their feet. Sure, they put up a good show, as would the gallant players of a vanquished rugby side, but as the credits roll, Men of Harlech swells the collective breast, and Britannia waives the rules once again. Still, if one can set aside the political correctoscope for an hour and a half, Zulu can be thoroughly enjoyed as a tense, detailed and well-characterised classic that transcends the costume battle genre and makes for a great ensemble piece of 60s English star-power.