Gunfight at Roarke's Drift.

Rating: 7/10 (28 October 2010)

It seems incredible that one hundred or so British soldiers could hold off a Zulu army of about 4,000 in Natal in 1878, yet it apparently happened. The story fits comfortably in the template established during the American colonial wars against the Indians. "Our side" is better armed and more disciplined and one of our boys can tackle ten of theirs.
Yet, it's more than just another Western set in Africa, with soldiers in red tunics instead of blue. The Zulu warriors, though faceless, are given their due as human beings. When a soldier with a bayonet faces off against a Zulu with an lklwa, a short stabbing spear, both are seen as clearly scared.
And the Zulus in this movie are really scary too. They don't ride around the circled wagons waiting to be picked off one by one. They attack in droves. And the sounds they make, the long low moans, the awesome thumps of a thousand spears against a thousand shields, is enough to turn your hair gray. At the end of the battle, the ground in and around the mission post at Roarke's Drift is littered with hundreds of African dead and wounded. One of the officers, Michael Caine, asks himself how he feels and his answer is "ashamed." The film explores the differences in attitude between and within social classes. The enlisted men are a rough lot, given to tearing at the bodices of young missionary women. Some are inveterate goof offs who malinger and hide in the hospital to avoid work. There are class differences between the officers as well. Stanley Baker is an engineer who gets his hands dirty. Michael Caine is from a military family and plays his character as an effete snob. When he runs, he holds his hands still at his sides so he seems to be mincing in double time. He must have had fun turning this aristocrat into a fastidious androgyne with a high voice, because Caine himself was a Cockney with a Gypsy background.
The movie has another feature that's a little unusual in these kinds of action tales. It gives us a genuine sense of the fatigue the men felt. The battle itself didn't last all that long -- a day and a night -- but the men were worked half to death building the defenses and manning them during the fight. Even the color sergeant, the stereotypical savvy and rough can-do enlisted leader, falls asleep at his post. Mostly, physical exhaustion isn't dealt with in war movies because, I suppose, it's not nearly as dramatic to see men slogging along with their faces drooping as it is to see them singing and firing rifles. I should mention the score. Evoking the Zulu threat, it sounds like a huge locomotive picking up speed while still in low gear -- and absolutely unstoppable.
For some reason I remember distinctly seeing this in a theater in Butte, Montana, during its release. The only other theater in town was showing "The Unsinkable Molly Brown." I'm thinking of leaving my long-term memory to the Smithsonian Institute.
Anyway, the movie is colorful and exciting, and reasonably fair to both sides, given that it represents a more or less common incident in colonial wars that pitted white soldiers against people with darker skin.