p37 Zulu (Cannes)
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28 May 2013
Zulu is an inexplicable choice as a film to close the Festival; French-made (the director is Jérôme Salle) but set in South Africa, it stars Forest Whitaker as a driven Zulu detective and Orlando Bloom as his white sidekick.
Starting with the grisly murder of a teenage girl, the film progresses through decapitation, torture and countless shootings and stabbings to unveil a sinister conspiracy to manufacture a psychogenic drug.
Although Whitaker and Bloom give their all and the film’s narrative is undeniably supercharged, Zulu is an unpleasant, cliché-ridden thriller which coincidentally portrays Cape Town as the seventh circle of hell.
