City of Violence

A brave effort by the French, keeping their typical traditions of hard, raw and direct crime dramas, and are not afraid to experiment a bit (exotic South Africa). It’s a very rough and explicit blood fest in places, but unfortunately it is entertaining mainly because of its form and style, and the performances. The script is too simple and generic. The surprisingly well matched Forest Whitaker-Orlando Bloom duo is a delight. The latter in particular portrays a character of a perpetually drunk and stoned cop, the exact opposite of his acting career so far, and I have a feeling that he enjoyed it quite a bit. (01/20/2017)

Definitely never going on holiday to South Africa. A somber, brutal thriller. Excellent acting, great direction. A classic investigation into the death of a white girl turns into a bloodbath combining drug dealing with an ethnic purge. A lot of unpleasant things happen (severing limbs, castration by dog), but the most horrifying is just how calmly the characters accept it all. P.S: From now on Bloom should take only this type of role. (10/30/2019)

A very good crime drama in a classic style. It is often compared to the currently fashionable Nordic book/film production, but I think it is much closer to the good old French stuff. After all, it was the French who wrote and filmed Zulu, so no wonder. The slowly unfolding screenplay cares about the characters, it also doesn't spare any suspense or surprises, the acting is also flawless, because Forest Whitaker can't even be bad, and in the closing credits I was very pleasantly surprised to see that the good Orlando Bloom-like actor is Orlando Bloom. Thanks to the gripping desert finale (in which it's really not a problem to imagine Lin Ventura in Forest Whitaker's place), I'm thinking about a fifth star. (06/26/2015)

After a long time, this was finally a pretty solid French crime movie, which actually has very little to do with France. And that’s mainly because it takes place in South Africa and the surrounding countries. It’s definitely pretty rough, which is good. It’s a pity though that it’s rough mainly at the start and then it gradually eases up. Nevertheless, this easing up is still made up for by the fact that Orlando Bloom is a true actor in this one – he puts in a performance that you would never have thought he was capable of. So, for me, Zulu is an absolutely unique movie with an original name that I won’t forget for a while for several reasons. (09/25/2015)

Despite all the sun, this is a heavy crime movie on the edge of noire and the modern Scandinavian school which capitalizes (and slightly trips up) on holding up a mirror to the consequences and scourges of apartheid. It “capitalizes" in the sense that thanks to this, this isn’t just another bleak movie “about some horrors". It “trips up" in the sense that in the last third, the creators try too hard to make it “overlap" much more than the classic limits of the genre can take. It wouldn’t be a problem in City of God, Elite Squad or Metro Manila, however they aren’t primarily dark crime movies clinging tightly to all of the (un)written rules of the genre. P.S.: Who would have guessed that the role of the vagabond macho wreck of a cop would fit Bloom so snugly? (04/28/2014)