September Dawn

last updated 8 January 2015

It's no surprise this indie epic didn't screen at Utah's Sundance film festival, said J. Hoberman in The Village Voice. September Dawn recounts the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, in which 'œa California-bound wagon train of Missouri settlers were slaughtered by irate Mormons.' Church officials and historians still argue the details. Director Chris Cain claims his film isn't an indictment of Mormonism but of violent religious extremism more generally. It clumsily points out that the massacre occurred on Sept. 11 and otherwise strives to conflate Brigham Young with Osama bin Laden. But any ostensible message gets trampled by plodding ironies, clichÃ©d speeches, and a directorial style marked by 'œthe ham-fisted lyricism of political ads and pharmaceutical commercials.' Many Mormons were concerned that this film would prove an embarrassment to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Jeff Vice in the Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News. 'œIt is indeed a tremendous embarrassment'”for the filmmakers.' Brit Terence Stamp awkwardly plays Brigham Young, while Jon Voight is the fictional Mormon bishop who orders the attack. Some stories just shouldn't be told by Hollywood, said Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. Shoehorning this complicated saga into a traditional Western framework makes Mormons seem nothing more than black-hatted evildoers, and produces a 'œstrange, confused, unpleasant movie' that teaches nothing about either religion or history.

Rating: PG-13