ZULU DAWN -- Blu-Ray/DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 3/12/13

 

The Battle of Isandlwana is known as history's worst defeat of a "modern" army by native forces, and you'll see why when you watch Severin Films' Blu-Ray/DVD release of the rip-roaring ZULU DAWN (1979), a disheartening portrait of a pointless and utterly wasteful military massacre.

It's 1879, and the supremely arrogant Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole), who commands the British Army in South Africa, is eager to declare war on the Zulu Empire for fun and profit.  He sends an unreasonable ultimatum to the Zulu king, Cetshwayo, which is rightly refused, giving Lord Chelmsford an excuse to go on the offensive.

"My only fear is that the Zulus will avoid an engagement," Chelmsford haughtily remarks, and a successful initial skirmish with a small band of Zulus reinforces his false confidence.  But unknown to him, King Cetshwayo has 30,000 fierce warriors ready to bring the fight to the advancing enemy, and when they clash with the unsuspecting British forces it quickly escalates into a terrifying one-sided slaughter.

Before this, however, ZULU DAWN takes its sweet time building up to the action as we watch the overconfident British forces at work and play in the town of Natal.  We see them as sophisticated gentleman soldiers dashing around self-importantly on horseback or engaging in spirited training exercises and bonding rituals as though living some curdled version of the "Boys' Adventure" tales.  Only Col. Anthony Durnford (Burt Lancaster) seems to have any understanding of the Zulus and how dangerous it is to underestimate them, but Chelmsford dismisses his warnings.

An elegant garden party gives officers and their families a taste of proper English life as realistic characters rub shoulders with familiar caricatures such as the achingly genteel Fanny Colenso (Anna Caulder-Marshall, WUTHERING HEIGHTS).  The party ends with the declaration of war and before long, horsemen and infantry are marching toward Zululand as their keen anticipation of battle grows.  "What a wonderful adventure we're undertaking!" one of them beams while riding briskly along on horseback.    

Meanwhile, we're given a preview of what they're up against when we see King Cetshwayo impassively viewing a fight to the death and reacting to Lord Chelmsford's ultimatum with a calm dismissal.  He's cruel and unyielding, ordering executions without trials and ruling with an iron fist, but we can't help but see his side of the issue and sympathize, as the film clearly aims to throw our loyalties for either side into conflict.  On one hand, the Zulus are protecting their homeland from outsiders and are portrayed as brave, loyal comrades.  On the other, honorable soldiers are being sent unprepared into a hopeless battle at the behest of unworthy superiors. 

When the two forces finally meet, it's like Custer's Last Stand multiplied by ten.  Current filmmakers like Peter Jackson can give us millions of CGI-generated soldiers in conflict, but there's still nothing quite as impressive as seeing thousands of actual people going at it on an expansive cinematic battlefield that's roiling with furious action. 

The clash of fighting styles is woefully evident as the smartly-dressed British line up in neat rows and fire in an orderly fashion while the Zulus stampede toward them by the thousands like a human avalanche.  Almost the entire second half of ZULU DAWN consists of such an overwhelming defeat of the British that there's barely even any suspense save the question of how long the massacre will last. 

Scattered vignettes depict small instances of valor that are somewhat redeeming, such as the attempt of Lt. William Vereker (Simon Ward) to rescue the battalion's colors and carry them to safety, and the heroism of C.S.M. Williams (Bob Hoskins) as he fights to the death in hand-to-hand combat alongside a callow young soldier with whom he has formed a fatherly bond.  We get to know some of the Zulus as well, as they're captured by the British and tortured before giving false information and, eventually, managing to escape as their erstwhile captors are then led into an ambush.

Peter O'Toole and Burt Lancaster are superb as they lead a remarkable cast including Denholm Elliott (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK), Simon Ward, Bob Hoskins, John Mills, Freddie Jones, Ronald Lacey, Nigel Davenport, Phil Daniels, Michael Jayston, and Anna Calder-Marshall.  Composer Elmer Bernstein (THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, THE GREAT ESCAPE) contributes a score that's passable but not up to his usual standards.

Director Douglas Hickox (THEATER OF BLOOD, THE GIANT BEHEMOTH) handles first unit photography in a consistently interesting and imaginative way, with the initial scenes evincing a drollness and dry wit that evolves into an epic grandeur that's often bracing.  The main drawback is that much of the film's first half is almost too dry and conservatively paced, although this is more than made up for by the continuous action that follows the halfway mark.
 
The Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack from Severin Films is in widescreen with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound and full HD resolution.  No subtitles.  Extras consist of "The History of the Zulu Wars" and "A Visit to the Battlefield" with author Ian Knight ("Zulu Rising"), "Recreating the War" with historical advisor Midge Carter, a theatrical trailer, and outtakes. 

Fans of British colonialism will probably want to skip ZULU DAWN lest they find it an ultimately dispiriting experience.  Anyone who gets off on seeing a "primitive" indigenous population repelling a superior invading force, on the other hand, should have a ball.  But those interested in military history and warfare, and war-movie fans in general, will be best served by this vivid and sweeping depiction of one of the most unsual battles ever fought.

ZULU DAWN -- Blu-Ray/DVD Review by Porfle

COMBAT! FAN FAVORITES 50TH ANNIVERSARY -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 9/30/12

 

During the initial TV run of the World War II drama series "Combat!" (1962-67) I couldn't get into it because it was too grown-up.  During its syndicated reruns, I was going through my "pacifist" phase and couldn't stand to watch anything war-related unless it was blatantly, even stridently anti-war.  Now, however, I'm blazing my way through Image Entertainment's 5-disc DVD set COMBAT! FAN FAVORITES 50th ANNIVERSARY like Patton making a beeline to Berlin.

Without a doubt, this is some of the best stuff ever done for series television.  Gritty, realistic (as far as I know, anyway), and unflinchingly adult, the adventures of Sgt. Saunders (Vic Morrow), Lt. Hanley (Rick Jason), and their battle-weary squad of American infantry veterans in post-Normandy Europe puts us right in the middle of all the action and lets us share some of the emotional and existential turmoil that haunts these soldiers every perilous step of the way.

No flag-waving here--these are simply stories about hot, tired, and, most of all, scared soldiers doing a grueling job and trying to stay alive on the front lines.  The streetwise Kirby (Jack Hogan), Lousiana bayou denizen Caje (Pierre Jalbert), gentle giant Littlejohn (Dick Peabody), and compassionate medic Doc (Conlan Carter) wade into the fray with guns blazing yet struggle to retain their humanity, always coming across as three-dimensional human beings and never simple action figures.

Moral quandaries and crises of the soul get just as much play in these well-written stories as gunfights and explosions.  The dialogue snaps, crackles, and pops, and so do the performances.  Method actor Morrow is terrific as the gruff but sensitive Sgt. Saunders, who always does the right thing no matter how painful it may be, and doesn't hesitate, when necessary, to bark out a speech such as the following: "Kirby, I'm only gonna say this once, and I'll say it to all of you.  Keep your mouths shut, your heads down, and your ears open.  Follow my orders and don't ask why.  Is that clear?" 

Saunders sometimes questions orders himself, but his commanding officer Lt. Hanley is equally terse: "Because we were told to."  Rick Jason's seldom-seen character may seem like weak stuff at first, but his depth comes through in less flamboyant but equally dramatic sequences such as in the flashback episode "A Day in June" which, on a TV budget and with generous amounts of stock footage, depicts the D-Day landing at Normandy.  Jason also gets to show his stuff in "The Enemy", a tense two-man conflict between him and a cunning German demolitions expert played by Robert Duvall.  (Anna Lee guest stars as a nun.)

These taut, riveting dramas are punctuated by explosive battle sequences blazing with some of the most thundrous and thrilling action ever filmed for television, often of feature film quality but without the big-money effects.  The beautiful black-and-white photography sometimes approximates the texture of a Joe Kubert-drawn war comic, and many episodes boast skillful direction by the likes of Robert Altman, Ted Post, Bernard McEveety, and Burt Kennedy.  (Morrow himself directs three titles in this set.)  Editing and other production elements are also first-rate.

A two part episode, "Hills Are for Heroes", holds its own with "Saving Private Ryan" or "Band of Brothers" for fierce non-stop battle action that's realistic, harrowing, and emotionally devastating.  Written by "Star Trek: The Original Series" veteran Gene L. Coon and directed by Morrow, it's the story of the squad's seemingly doomed effort to capture a hilltop bunker that's practically impregnable. 

Mutiny looms as the body count rises, with Kirby and the others threatening to disobey the relentless orders that a heartbroken Lt. Hanley is forced to convey from the top.  The awful burden of command is depicted in scenes of almost unbearable intensity, with Hanley privately lamenting to Saunders that the brass "with their maps and their lines...forget they're talking about flesh and blood...and men who die when bullets hit them."
 
Attack after harrowing attack is doomed to bloody failure as Vic Morrow's sometimes impressionistic direction puts us right in the middle of the action (the handheld camerawork of the series is outstanding for its time), even capturing the POV of a dying soldier whose world has just been shot out from under him. 

If you took the first twenty minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" and extended the sequence to feature length (albeit on a much smaller scale), you'd have something approximating "Hills Are for Heroes."  In my opinion this incredible two-part episode, taken as a whole, constitutes one of the finest low-budget war films ever made.  By any standard, it's absolutely phenomenal television.

Each of the five discs in this DVD set follows a specific theme illustrated by four well-chosen episodes.  The first three themes are "Espionage", "New Replacements", and "The Squad", followed by "The Best of Hanley" and "The Best of Saunders."  "Espionage" begins the set with James Coburn as a German spy pretending to be an American G.I. in "Masquerade."  James Whitmore portrays a German officer trapped into impersonating a priest in "The Cassock", an episode that achieves a genuine kind of dramatic fascination when one of Saunders' men prevails upon the faux priest to hear his confession. 

"New Replacements" tells the stories of raw recruits--some fearful, some arrogant, and some just pitifully out of place--who, for better or worse, become attached to Saunders' squad.  Among the guest stars are John Cassavetes ("S.I.W."), Nick Adams, John Considine, Tab Hunter, and Buck Taylor.  "The Squad" shows us the day to day struggles, heartbreaks, and occasional victories experienced by the men under Saunders' command, with Lee Marvin giving his usual hardbitten performance as an abrasively uncompromising demolitions expert in "The Leader." 

"The Best of Saunders" begins with the Robert Altman-directed "Survival", probably my least favorite episode in the bunch, and steadily improves with the aid of some great stories and guest stars such as Rip Torn ("A Gift of Hope") and James Caan as a young German officer ("Anatomy of a Patrol").  "The Best of Hanley" contains some of the set's finest episodes with "A Day in June", "The Enemy", and "Hills Are for Heroes" parts 1 and 2.  Guest stars include Harry Dean Stanton, Sheckey Greene, a blink-and-you'll-miss-him Tom Skerritt (unbilled), and the aformentioned Robert Duvall and Anna Lee.

Other episodes not previously mentioned are "The Little Jewel", "The Long Walk", "Bridgehead", "Bridge at Chalons", "The Glory Among Men", "Rear Echelon Commandos", "The Celebrity", "The First Day", and "The Little Carousel."

The DVD set from Image Entertainment is in full frame (1.33:1) with Dolby Digital mono sound.  No subtitles or closed-captioning.  No bonus features.  Picture quality looks great to me, but my copy seemed to have a problem with occasionally jittery-sounding audio, particularly in the background music.  Not a dealbreaker for me, but audiophiles may want to give the set a test-drive before buying.

Perfect for Veteran's Day or any other day, COMBAT! FAN FAVORITES 50th ANNIVERSARY is solid entertainment all the way.  If you're into war movies or you just like first-rate, hard-hitting action and drama, television rarely gets any better than this. 

COMBAT! FAN FAVORITES 50TH ANNIVERSARY -- DVD Review by Porfle

9TH COMPANY -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 8/16/10

 

Joining the hallowed ranks of kickass war movies comes the stunning 9TH COMPANY (2005), which tells its fact-based story from a unique perspective--a platoon of Soviet soldiers fighting in Afghanistan in the late 80s--while focusing on the usual things like brotherhood, courage, and the tragedies of war.  (Not to mention how downright terrifying it can be.)

The basic war-film elements that we expect are all here, beginning with a bunch of raw recruits saying goodbye to their families and sweethearts in Siberia and getting on the bus that will take them to boot camp.  Next comes their encounter with an ogre-like drill sergeant who puts them through hell as they gradually form a close bond with one another.  Then, after they've been toughened up and molded into fighting men, it's off to war where the real hell begins.

Making the main characters a collection of recognizable stereotypes just seems to work for this kind of movie.  There's Lyutyl (Artur Smolyaninov), a cocky hood-wannabe who, in an American war film, would likely be played as a Noo Yawk Italian by some young DeNiro type.  Gioconda (Konstantin Kryukov) is the artist, tough but soulful.  Chugun (Ivan Kokorin) is the joker with the bulldog mug, Stas (Artyom Mikhalkov) is a young husband and father who keeps his kid's crayon drawing close to his heart, and Vorobei (Aleksey Chadov) is the sensitive romantic, saving his virtue for when he returns home to his beloved Olya.

On the other hand, their hulking tormentor, Sgt. Dygalo (Mikhail Porechenkov), bears only passing resemblance to the likes of R. Lee Ermey in FULL METAL JACKET.  Along with a disfiguring facial scar he carries a deep mental one from his own experiences in Afghanistan, which prevents him from being sent back into the action as he desperately wants.  We soon realize that his cruelty toward the men stems from a desire to make them ready for what he knows they will face, and his character is both tragic and sympathetic. 

The men spend a last furtive evening in a shack having sex with the camp nymphomaniac, a nurse's daughter named Snow White (Irina Rakhmanova), and end up united in mock worship of the beaming nude girl after artist Gioconda heralds her as their own beautiful Venus.  More group bonding occurs when, after many defeats, they pull together against another squad during training and finally succeed in taking a hill.  But this hard-won victory is only a foreshadowing of what's in store for them later on.

As with those jarring jump-cuts in both FULL METAL JACKET and THE DEER HUNTER, the story takes an abrupt turn roughly halfway through when the door of their transport plane closes on the world they know and opens on one that is totally foreign and fraught with peril.  One of the film's most spectacular sequences takes place at the landing field in a blaze of death and destruction that's cunningly well-staged and effective (I still can't believe the budget was under ten million).  Our heroes are then assigned to 9th Company whose mission is to protect an isolated mountain pass and the supply convoys which regularly move through it from the dreaded Mujahedeen. 

Here, 9TH COMPANY resembles SAVING PRIVATE RYAN with its long stretches of boredom and paranoia broken by sudden bursts of frantic battle action.  Gone, however, is the jittery, faded-newsreel quality of that film's action scenes in favor of a more contemporary and stylized look, which is nonetheless just as involving.  Talented first-time director Fyodor Bondarchuk pulls no punches and gives his film the same "you are there" immediacy of WE WERE SOLDIERS, placing us in the thick of battle as waves of "Muj" soldiers advance incessantly on the Russians' position with guns blazing.

Maksim Osadchy's cinematography is strangely beautiful, almost impressionistic at times--echoing Gioconda's curious assertion that war itself is, in its own way, beautiful--while still conveying the stark immediacy of chaotic events hurdling out of control.  An outstanding soundtrack and rich, unabashedly emotional musical score add to the overall effect.  Bondarchuk, who handles the direction with the sure hand of a talented veteran, does double duty as actor in the role of 9th Company's battle-weary Sergeant Khokhol.  The script by Yuriy Korotkov contains several dramatic high points and, while conforming to much of the war genre's oldest traditions, still bristles with the unexpected.

The 2-disc DVD from Well Go USA is in 2.45:1 widescreen with Dolby 5.1 English-dubbed soundtrack and the original Russian in Dolby 2.0 with English subtitles.  (My advice is to pick the Russian version because the English dubbing isn't that hot.)  Disc one contains the movie plus a theatrical promo and trailer.  Disc two consists of three featurettes including the 39-minute "Making the Movie" and two shorter ones, "20 Years Later" (with actual 9th Company vets telling their own riveting stories), and "The Premiere", in which the director's mother and other talking heads opine at length about the film. 

Eschewing the overwhelmingly dark pessimism of PLATOON, APOCALYPSE NOW, and other such films, 9TH COMPANY doesn't get bogged down in politics or depict its main characters as hapless fodder for a senseless war machine.  Their reasons for fighting and dying go beyond politics and what victories they manage to eke out of the chaos are their own.  While the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan ultimately proved futile, 9TH COMPANY succeeds in honoring the men who fought there rather than forcing them, and the viewer, to wallow in defeat. 

9TH COMPANY -- DVD Review by Porfle