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Cast

Orlando Bloom
as Brian Epkeen

Forest Whitaker
as Ali Sokhela

Reghardt van den Bergh

Inge Beckmann

Conrad Kemp
as Dan Fletcher

Tinarie van Wyk Loots

Randall Majiet

Patrick Lyster

Joelle Kayembe

Tanya van Graan
as Tara

Danny Keogh

Christian Bennett

Iman Isaacs

Nomhle Nkonyeni

Denise Newman

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Critic Reviews for Zulu

Audience Reviews for Zulu

• Jul 23, 2014

  Lose your mind in South Africa. Good Film! First of all the film had me for the whole time, the premise was intriguing and both Whitaker and Bloom provide excellent tension throughout. It was well paced and fairly unpredictable. The plot here is relatively thin- they start in true film noir fashion with the murder of a girl and follows with the tried and true tradition of jaded detective partners working the case. There is not much more to it than that. However, the film is more interested in the political and social world of Cape Town, and does this pretty well whilst maintaining the gripping action. The characters also are well developed, in particular Bloom as the booze soaked apathetic detective who keeps falling deeper and deeper into the seedy underbelly he's investigating. Whitaker is very good, establishing a character then staying true to what he presents initially. If you like watching the mature Forest Whitaker do his thing then you will enjoy this movie. Like all good cop movies there is some redemption at the end so fear not in the middle, if you find yourself a little depressed. Stick it out and you will feel a little redemption yourself, maybe a little hope. As a child, Ali Neuman narrowly escaped being murdered by Inkhata, a militant political party at war with Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Only he and his mother survived the carnage of those years. But as with many survivors, the psychological scars remain. Today, Ali is chief of the homicide branch of the South African police in Cape Town. One of his staff is Brian Epkeen, a free-wheeling white officer whose family was originally involved in the establishment of apartheid but who works well with Neuman. Together they have to deal with crime that inevitably exists in sprawling areas of un- and under- employed people, crime exacerbated by gangs, both local and from other parts of Africa. Their job gets even more difficult when the corpses of two young women are found. A new evil has been introduced in the city and a new drug has been introduced to its residents, including both murder victims. At the chaotic crossroads where brutality and modernization collide, the echoes of apartheid still resound in the shadows of a society struggling toward reconciliation.
  Manu G Super Reviewer
• May 20, 2014

  An extremely intense, gripping and brutal crime drama with two powerful performances by Bloom and Whitaker - the latter playing a man running away from his past but forced to face his own sense of forgiveness in this bleak post-Apartheid South Africa where society still struggles in an informal war.
  Carlos M Super Reviewer
• Apr 30, 2014

  This English-language French crime film directed by Jérôme Salle (his first English language film) was unexpected treat for me. I thought it would be just an average African adventure but I got so much more from this movie which was selected as the closing film at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. [img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9d/Zulu_poster.jpg [/img] The story of the South-African policemen Ali Sokhela (Forest Whitaker) and Brian Epkeen (Orlando Bloom) in the post-apartheid South Africa was an interesting and moving ... I was fully involved in following the investigation of the whole tem discovering a massacre which apparently took place because a new illegal substance became recently available. In 110 minutes the characters almost fully revealed themselves, and we find out that as a child, Ali Neuman narrowly escaped being murdered by Inkhata, a militant political party at war with Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. Alii is chief of the homicide branch of the South African police in Cape Town, and one of his staff is Brian Epkeen, a free-wheeling white officer whose family was originally involved in the establishment of apartheid but who works well with Neuman. The social picture is revealing that the crime inevitably exists in sprawling areas of un -and under- employed people, crime exacerbated by gangs, both local and from other parts of Africa. Their job gets even more difficult when the corpses of two young women are found. A new evil has been introduced in the city and a new drug has been introduced to its residents, including both murder victims... This is a film-noir with lost souls trying to find some redemption. Unbelievably good acting from Orlando Bloom as a drunkard and man of action/lost cop matched the excellent performance of his captain Forrest Whitaker, who could finally prove that even action movies are not an obstacle for him! Do not miss it, if you have a chance to check it out.
  Panta O Super Reviewer

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