ACED Magazine

Rated: R
Starring: Jon Voight, Terence Stamp, Taylor Handley, Lolita Davidovich, Tamara Hope
Directed by: Christopher Cain

Synopsis: Academy Award® winner Jon Voight, Terence Stamp and Trent Ford star in this film based on the true story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the brutal murder of 120 men, women and children on September 11, 1857 as their wagon train passed through Utah on its way to California.

The question of whether the attack was carried out by local Paiute Indians or by a renegade sect of the Mormon church remains unresolved to this day. Set against the breathtaking beauty of the Utah mountains, September Dawn explores what might have happened when the ill-fated settlers stopped near Cedar City to rest before completing the last leg of their journey.

Local Mormon Bishop Jacob Samuelson (Voight) is suspicious of the group, so he dispatches his oldest son Jonathan (Ford) to spy on them. Jonathan soon falls in love with an angelic member of the wagon train, the minister's daughter Emily (Tamara Hope), and is horrified when he discovers that his father thinks the settlers are enemies of the church and is planning an attack on them. While Jonathan makes plans to escape with Emily, his father sets in motion a chain of events, fueled by revenge and fanaticism, which culminates in a violent and tragic ambush.

DVD Features:

• True Events: A Historical Perspective
• Descendants: Remembering the Tragedy
  

Critique:

September Dawn portrays the disturbing depiction of religious and political madness that has, at one time, run rampant in all nations and religions. None are innocent from a bloody past. If anyone denies their religion or country ever did anything like this, well, everybody lies...

When you watch the utter calculated slaughter of these settlers—men, women and small children—you see the same greed, lies and loss of reality unfold as evident in the acts of previous and future political and religious terrorists and murderers. Brutality being key here. I don't think I have ever been so disturbed, and actually seeing the children shot, stabbed or beaten with rifle butts...horrific.

Voight does a tremendous job oozing the pure evil from his character. You see the insanity of blind belief, conflicted regret and repressed compassion.

There are a few things that just don't add up in the film, not that anyone could ever rationalize such atrocities, but the maliciousness of the attack just doesn't seem justified...at all. Nothing was done to provoke the Mormons in this film, in fact, quite the opposite. Indeed, the portrayal of the event comes off very decisive, born totally from the desire to get the settlers' goods, cattle and horses...the Mormons made up stories to feed their followers who lacked the ability to think and judge for themselves.

Is this movie depressing and unsettling? You betcha. Is it historically accurate? Of course not. Many liberties were taken, including a love story inserted into the mix (most likely to spice things up a bit, even though that itself was a bit flat).

Watch this movie to be horrified, outraged and devastated...not for its historical merit. Witness a reenactment of what it must have been like, not only for these poor people, but for so many other races, religions and nationalities when their peoples also suffered the same horrors.

Watch it, remember it. Hope to one day stop it from happening again and again...if only people would grow half a brain and end the senseless violence that still goes on today in various countries...

This Reviewer's Rating: 3 / 5

Comments

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B. Young   |2008-01-09 01:00:43 Okay... I did it. Oops! Reply 0   0

Anonymous   |2008-01-06 07:33:00 [smiley=sad] Reply 0   0

not one of them   |2008-01-04 21:34:29 this movie depicts the murder of over 100 men,women and children on the orders of cult leader brigahm young, and no amount of spin can change those FACTS. Reply 0   0

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