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08/25/07
September Dawn (2007)
13
%
Tomatometer
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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.
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins
Genre: Dramas
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
Reviews for September Dawn
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10/18/08
[Director Cain] stops short of calling Osama bin Laden a Mormon sympathizer, but maybe that'll be on the DVD.
08/24/07
The cruel simplicity of the atrocity is made needlessly chaotic by artless camerawork that swishes rapidly back and forth across the action, to the accompaniment of a syrupy soundtrack.
08/23/07
Even if Cain and co-screenwriter Carole Whang Schutter hold no animosity toward the LDS, the flat-footed fakiness of their story prevents September Dawn from feeling historically accurate.
08/24/07
The jarring MTV-style filmmaking is so distracting and the 'messaging' so unsubtle that after two long hours you find yourself leaving the theater with a massive headache, wondering when you started to hate Mormons.
08/23/07
Cain has turned the Mormons into baby-eatin' Nazis to suit his argument, parading around these black-clad, chin-bearded, testicle-slicing gunslingers without any thoughtful consideration.
08/23/07
Such ham-fisted earnestness does no one any good, least of all those who believe there's a big difference between historical fact and emotional screed.
08/24/07
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
The film feels less like historical drama than a venomous religious tract printed on celluloid.
08/23/07
With September Dawn, filmmaker Christopher Cain has turned a national tragedy into a teen romance, and not in a grand, entertaining, Titanic way.
08/24/07
Cain has co-written and directed a film that only the most bigoted of Mormom detractors could enjoy. Most viewers, if any are willing to part with their money or time, will simply laugh derisively.
08/23/07
Even 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.
08/23/07
An asinine chunk of Mormonsploitation that mixes historical fact with fictional romance and bald-faced anti-Mormon prejudice.
08/24/07
Has serious problems in historical terms. But in this case they're exacerbated by the simple ineptitude of the filmmaking.
06/21/07
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09/01/07
Bombastic, slow-drying dramatization with lead-weight dialogue and a turgid romantic subplot.
08/23/07
September Dawn has the ham-fisted lyricism of political ads and pharmaceutical commercials.
08/21/07
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
Disturbingly awful.
08/24/07
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