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"Ham-fisted" and "venemous religious tract": Reviews for "September Dawn"
RottenTomatoes.com ^ | 08/23/07 | Various

Posted on 08/23/2007 5:45:11 PM PDT by Reaganesque

"This handsome indie Western damningly recounts the 1857 slayings of 120 settlers passing through Utah, but the didactic presentation, grim speechifying and tacked-on love story all signify a less-than-healthy regard for the audience's intelligence."
Click for Full Review  Variety   Justin Chang

1/4
1/4 "The film feels less like historical drama than a venomous religious tract printed on celluloid."
Click for Full Review  Minneapolis Star Tribune   Colin Covert

 

"September Dawn has the ham-fisted lyricism of political ads and pharmaceutical commercials."
Click for Full Review  Village Voice   J. Hoberman

 

"When the movie isn't doling out ham-fisted history...it gives us magnificent vistas of a pristine prairie...and there's a deep sweetness to the subplot of Jonathan and Emily falling in love."
Click for Full Review  Film Journal International   Frank Lovece

1.5/4
1.5/4 "When watching the screen depiction of a historic event in which 120 people were murdered, giggling is not the appropriate response."
Click for Full Review  Salt Lake Tribune   Sean Means


1/5 "It has the chilling certitude of the self-righteous."
Click for Full Review  Orlando Sentinel   Roger Moore

2.5/5
2.5/5 "The real problem is that September Dawn isn't a very good movie. It moves too much like a public-school history pageant and gives us mono-dimensional characters who speak dialogue that fairly reeks of printer's ink."
Click for Full Review  Arizona Republic   Richard Nilsen

1/5
1/5 "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."
Click for Full Review  Orlando Weekly   Brett Register

1/4
1/4 "Forget Grindhouse. September Dawn is the year's first honest-to-goodness exploitation flick."
Click for Full Review  Slant Magazine   Nick Schager

1/4
1/4 "Bombastic, slow-drying dramatization with lead-weight dialogue and a turgid romantic subplot."
Click for Full Review  Newsday   Gene Seymour

D-
D- "Has serious problems in historical terms. But in this case they're exacerbated by the simple ineptitude of the filmmaking."
Click for Full Review  One Guy's Opinion   Frank Swietek

"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."
Click for Full Review  Washington Post   Desson Thomson

2.5/4
2.5/4 "If September Dawn is a kind of Western, it's a Western utterly devoid of heroism or the usual archetypes. But the core message transcends time: Hatred laced with religious fanaticism is a toxic blend."
Click for Full Review  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   Dave Tianen

1/4
1/4 "Doesn't even measure up to an episode of your typical, cowboy TV show from the Fifties like Roy Rogers or The Lone Ranger. Get my drift, Kimosabe?"
Click for Full Review  NewsBlaze   Kam Williams

Click here for links to the full reviews.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: dawn; fistsofhams; hamfisted; hamhamhamham; movie; moviereview; reviews; september; septemberdawn
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The long awaited movie that would "expose the Mormon deception" is out and critics are fairly unanimous: it is a ham-fisted, overwrought, poorly crafted, message movie with all the subtly of a jack hammer to the head. I imagine Michael Moore is green with envy.
1 posted on 08/23/2007 5:45:13 PM PDT by Reaganesque
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To: CheyennePress; JCEccles; Rameumptom; restornu; Saundra Duffy; sevenbak; Swordfished; TheLion; ...

Ping!


2 posted on 08/23/2007 5:46:48 PM PDT by Reaganesque (Romney for President 2008)
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To: FastCoyote; colorcountry; MHGinTN; Colofornian; Enosh; aMorePerfectUnion; Elsie; svcw; ...

Condolences Ping!


3 posted on 08/23/2007 5:47:18 PM PDT by Reaganesque (Romney for President 2008)
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To: Reaganesque

Two different reviewers using the term “ham fisted” at the same time. Odd.


4 posted on 08/23/2007 5:49:11 PM PDT by Poser (Willing to fight for oil)
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To: Reaganesque

It is sad to read with such a tragic subject that would be mention of giggles!


5 posted on 08/23/2007 5:52:30 PM PDT by restornu (Teach them correct principals and let them govern themselves ~ Joseph Smith)
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To: Reaganesque

It might be a hamfisted movie but the historical facts are not in doubt.


6 posted on 08/23/2007 5:52:55 PM PDT by saganite (Billions and billions and billions----and that's just the NASA budget!)
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To: Poser

Here’s a third ham-fisted,

“But the pic is ultimately less interested in understanding its Mormon characters than in demonizing them, and a ham-fisted obviousness undermines scene after scene”

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117934474.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&nid=2562


7 posted on 08/23/2007 5:54:41 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: saganite

So you saw the movie please share with us!


8 posted on 08/23/2007 5:55:02 PM PDT by restornu (Teach them correct principals and let them govern themselves ~ Joseph Smith)
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To: saganite

They didn’t even try to disguise the real motivation for the movie.


9 posted on 08/23/2007 5:55:04 PM PDT by Poser (Willing to fight for oil)
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To: Shermy

“Here’s a third ham-fisted,”

Somebody put out a talking points list.


10 posted on 08/23/2007 5:56:01 PM PDT by Poser (Willing to fight for oil)
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To: restornu

No. I’m aware of the massacre though. Books, the forgotten media.


11 posted on 08/23/2007 5:56:09 PM PDT by saganite (Billions and billions and billions----and that's just the NASA budget!)
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To: saganite
The event did happen, that is true. Here's another quote from a reviewer who had a similiar comment:

Every religion, when scrutinized by a skeptic, is open to mockery. Tune in to South Park if you want satire that ridicules, sect by sect, all comers in the world of religious zealots especially Mormons.

But September Dawn isn't mockery. It's practically a call to jihad.

We can probably count the days until this shows up for sale on fringe Christian TV channels, its virtues trumpeted by some minister or other marketing his or her version of "The Truth."

There are facts here. It's thought-provoking in the ways it makes you consider how this event resembles that later 9/11.

But there's the unmistakable air of evil about this enterprise, and not just an atrocity the Mormon church caused to happen 150 years ago.

12 posted on 08/23/2007 5:56:19 PM PDT by Reaganesque (Romney for President 2008)
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To: Poser

Psst! Stop using “ham fisted”. They are on to us!


13 posted on 08/23/2007 6:02:01 PM PDT by donna (Warmest year on record is 1934 not 1998 due to NASA climate data Y2K bug, LOL!)
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To: Poser

I’ve been called a ham-fisted dirt mechanic before.


14 posted on 08/23/2007 6:02:01 PM PDT by Past Your Eyes (Criticize me if you will but just don't circumcise me any more.)
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To: Shermy; Poser

3 ham-fisted reviews? Starting to sound less like coincidence and more like plagarism (the stupid theory) or collusiion (the conspiracy theory).

Hmmm.


15 posted on 08/23/2007 6:03:36 PM PDT by Valpal1 ("I know the fittest have not survived when I watch Congress on CSPAN.")
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To: Reaganesque

Heh heh. It’s real funny when the Christians complain about anyone else’s history of blood and corpses. Pot meet kettle.

Then there’s the mountains of corpses from the last century created by the liberals’ favorite political philosophy. These lefty movie makers should really shut up about these things.

Oh, and I’m not a Mormon.


16 posted on 08/23/2007 6:11:12 PM PDT by Seruzawa (Attila the Hun... wasn't he a liberal?)
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To: Shermy; Poser
“ham fisted”

Stop it already, you're making me hungry.

17 posted on 08/23/2007 6:17:43 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler ("A person's a person no matter how small." -Dr. Seuss)
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To: Reaganesque
The jarring MTV-style filmmaking is so distracting...

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who finds the drunkard's point-of-view cinematic style unwatchable.
18 posted on 08/23/2007 6:18:48 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: SpaceBar
It's nice to know I'm not the only one who finds the drunkard's point-of-view cinematic style unwatchable.

What you said.

19 posted on 08/23/2007 6:19:34 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler ("A person's a person no matter how small." -Dr. Seuss)
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To: Reaganesque

So all the critics hate it? Sounds like a movie I’ll like.


20 posted on 08/23/2007 6:20:08 PM PDT by loreldan (Without coffee I am nothing.)
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