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Reviews Counted:17
Fresh:0
Rotten:17
Average Rating:2.8/10
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
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.
Top CriticThe workmanlike craftsmanship of Cain's filmmaking almost (but never quite) smooths over the ham-fisted way he conceives the story.
Top CriticA plodding and highly questionable history lesson.
Top CriticThe maudlin, grotesque western September Dawn apes Schindler’s List in hopes of creatinga Christian Holocaust picture.
Top CriticWhy does this film even exist?
Top CriticDisturbingly awful.
Top Critic[The film] too often feels like a very elaborate episode of Gunsmoke.
Top Critic[Director Cain] stops short of calling Osama bin Laden a Mormon sympathizer, but maybe that'll be on the DVD.
Top CriticIt turns a complicated story of religious bigotry and paranoia, with visitations from God, self-appointed prophets and 'divine' instruction into a dry history lesson.
Top CriticWhat a strange, confused, unpleasant movie this is.
Top CriticIt's waxy Classics Illustrated cinema.
Top CriticThe film feels less like historical drama than a venomous religious tract printed on celluloid.
Top CriticEven if one gets past the movie's controversial depictions, there is the matter of its second-rate, made-for-television fare -- the poor battle choreography, the wooden editing and the cheesy writing.
Top CriticBombastic, slow-drying dramatization with lead-weight dialogue and a turgid romantic subplot.
Top CriticThis handsome indie Western damningly recounts the 1857 slayings of 120 settlers passing through Utah, but the didactic presentation, grim speechifying and tacked-on love story all signify a less-than-healthy regard for the audience's intelligence.
Top CriticSeptember Dawn has the ham-fisted lyricism of political ads and pharmaceutical commercials.
Top CriticThe real problem is that September Dawn isn't a very good movie. It moves too much like a public-school history pageant and gives us mono-dimensional characters who speak dialogue that fairly reeks of printer's ink.
Top Critic
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