Oscar winner blasts woke claims his classic film could inspire far-right terrorism
SIR Michael Caine has blasted suggestions that his classic film Zulu could inspire far-right extremism as “bulls**t”.
The movie was listed by the Prevent counter-terror programme as among key texts for “white nationalists/supremacists”.
Double-Oscar winner Caine branded its inclusion “the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard”.
In the 1964 movie he plays Lt Gonville Bromhead, a British officer in the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War.
In one scene Bromhead is admonished over a racist remark and told: “They died on your side, didn’t they?
“And who the hell do you think is coming to wipe out your little command? The Grenadier Guards?”
Caine, 90 next week, also told The Spectator magazine that the film was the one that made him a star.
He said he became an actor because he “wanted to kiss a girl” and has no regrets over any of his movies.
Asked if he had plans to quit he said: “I retire all the time then a script arrives and tempts me out of retirement.”
Caine’s latest film The Great Escaper is inspired by true events and sees him play a Second World War veteran who flees his care home to attend the 70th anniversary commemoration of D-Day.
Last month’s Prevent list of works which could incite extremism bizarrely included the complete works of Shakespeare and hit TV shows such as Michael Portillo’s Great British Railway Journeys and The Thick Of It.
No explanation was given as to why they encouraged far-right sympathies.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman said at the time that the Prevent programme needed major reform.
She plans to overhaul it, and insisted it should focus on security rather than political correctness.