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10/18/08
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September Dawn (2007)
13
%
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Reviews Counted:54
Fresh:7
Rotten:47
Average Rating:3.4/10
Consensus: With its jarring editing, dull love story, and silly dialogue, September Dawn turns a horrific historical event into a banal movie.
Theatrical Release:Aug 24, 2007 Wide
Box Office: $1,059,110
Synopsis: This independently produced drama is based on historical fact: In 1857, Mormon settlers, in an area near Cedar City, massacred 120 people bound for California. Jon Voight plays Jacob Samuelson, a... [More]
Starring: Jon Voight, Terence Stamp, Trent Ford, Tamara Hope
Director: Christopher Cain
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Reviews for September Dawn
The villainous turns by Jon Voight (as a hard-hearted Mormon bishop) and Terence Stamp (as a bloodthirsty Brigham Young) would have been more fun if they weren't part of such a clumsy campaign to lay this tragedy at the church's doorstep.
12/03/07
Top CriticPredictable, obvious, often silly.
11/08/07
Drama may benefit from attention to history, but history doesn’t always make for good drama.
10/16/07
Contriving a faux Romeo and Juliet romance as a point of entry for the audience shows how unimaginative the filmmakers are, and how blandly and uninvolving it plays shows how fairly clueless they are in going about their game plan.
09/05/07
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09/01/07
Muddled, sloppy, and obfuscating.
08/31/07
For all the guns fired in the film, [director] Cain aims the largest one at his foot—and pulls the trigger again and again.
08/30/07
The workmanlike craftsmanship of Cain's filmmaking almost (but never quite) smooths over the ham-fisted way he conceives the story.
08/30/07
Top CriticAn already thin veneer of historical truth wears off fairly quickly in this surprisingly dull and melodramatic low-budget western.
08/30/07
There was another 9/11 horror. But it happened 150 years ago.
08/29/07
A plodding and highly questionable history lesson.
08/29/07
Top CriticIt's a toss-up as to whether September Dawn is more offensive as history, as allegory or simply as lousy self-important filmmaking.
08/29/07
With its complete lack of empathy for early Mormons and simplistic rendering of historical figures, September Dawn is that rare movie that actually deserves whatever condemnation might come from religious groups.
08/27/07
The director's overreaching attempts at social commentary with hackneyed devices weaken the veracity of the source material and leave the film open to interpretation as propaganda.
08/26/07
Often gripping and fascinating, it's bound to create waves of controversy.
08/25/07
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08/25/07
An asinine chunk of Mormonsploitation that mixes historical fact with fictional romance and bald-faced anti-Mormon prejudice.
08/24/07
For all its cinematic weaknesses, I left the theatre weeping. “Now you know how I feel when I see holocaust films,” my Jewish husband told me gently as he wiped away my tears.
08/24/07
Religious and thematic issues aside, September Dawn is well-crafted as a revisionist Western with a message.
08/24/07
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