Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
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.
Zulu (2013) is a French-South African crime thriller directed by Jérôme Salle, starring Orlando Bloom and Forest Whitaker. The Cape Town and South African landscape is captured with genuine power and visual distinction, earning high marks for cinematography — the Namib Desert and township sequences are evocative and immersive. The acting is serviceable, with Whitaker bringing weight to his traumatized detective role while Bloom is adequate if unremarkable. The plot is a fairly conventional serial-killer procedural elevated somewhat by its post-apartheid socio-political backdrop, but the apartheid legacy themes, though interesting, aren't fully developed. The ending feels rushed and unsatisfying, failing to pay off the emotional groundwork laid earlier, leaving the film's more ambitious thematic aspirations largely unfulfilled. As a crime thriller it competently hits expected beats but doesn't break significant new ground beyond its distinctive setting.