Review – September Dawn

This account of the Mountain Meadow Massacre is none too charitable to the Mormon church, though if it’s accurate then perhaps the church doesn’t deserve much mercy. Certainly the settlers who fell victim to the massacre didn’t get any. The slaughter of innocent folks just trying to make their way to California might have been the subject of a solid, tragic tale, but this production swiftly bogs down in clichés and over-simplifications. For example, all the Mormons are fanatics and polygamists, except of course for the young hero who forms a Romeo-and-Juliet relationship with a young settler woman. When the impact of a picture depends on its veracity, sometimes it’s better to work on showing both sides of the story. Mind you, I hate vicious religious fanatics as much as the next person. But here it comes across as too easy an explanation. Mildly amusing