This film is a decidedly one-sided account of the events leading up to the partition of Palestine and the establishment of the State of Israel. Except for Topol, playing a sheik, there is no consideration given to the Palestinian point of view. But that aside, the film is poorly written but decently executed. The cast is stellar, containing Kirk Douglas, John Wayne, Angie Dickinson, Senta Berger and Yul Brynner. The story could be epic...the struggle of Israel, alone and lacking weapons, against most of the Arab world. But, as I mentioned, the writing is the film's weakest point. The dialog seems stilted in places. The writing just basically lacks the strength to keep the viewer interested. I also found the sound track quality on the DVD to be poor, or perhaps it wasn't properly mixed. But some parts of the film, particularly dialog, are difficult to understand. If you crank the volume up enough, you can understand the audio OK, but then the music will blast you out of the room. The actual events featured tremendous amount of heroism (on both sides, actually), a story that kept the world's attention riveted on Palestine/Israel for a long time and political wrangling that created the monster that is today's middle east. Yet most of that was left untold. Also unrealistic was the Arab artillery accuracy. It seems that nearly every shot was a direct hit on a moving truck. Nobody's that good. I enjoyed the film on a shallow "action film" level, but was terribly disappointed that it didn't show the true events of the birth of Israel.
Review of Cast a Giant Shadow
