Thuggin' B Buggin'
The pre-celebrated Tsotsi busts every beat strictly by the numbers.
BY GREGORY WEINKAUF
Oh my God have you seen Tootsie!?”
I froze, carrot-stick in hand, and regarded the shouter. She was middle-aged, pretending to be younger, shoving seeded
crackers and some sort of cheese paste into her mouth. A similarly engaged woman cawed, “I haven’t yet, but I can’t
wait to! I heard it’s wonderful!”
(Indeed, I thought to myself. It’s one of the better Dustin Hoffman movies, and that adorable Davis girl who recently
became President even makes a nice little cameo.)
The cracker-woman spun toward me. “Have you seen it?”
Inferring what she meant (for we were all grazing at a recent Golden Globes gathering), I responded frankly. “Yes, I
have.”
“What did you think?”
“It’s well assembled, but honestly I don’t like gang-banger movies.”
The woman glared at me, cracker-crumbs and bits of white goop flecked all over her thick lipstick. “It’s not a gang-
banger movie,” she sneered.
“I know, I know, it’s about…redemption,” I hastily added, verifying my innate humanity, then I let the topic slide and
chewed the crudités. Hey, if a movie specifically about a gang-banger is somehow not a gang-banger movie, it’s a whole
new creative world of semantics out there. More fun for me. I briefly wondered how many times this ravenous zealot
had been divorced, guessed eight or nine, then wandered away.
The movie she was praising and mispronouncing (very possibly without having seen it) was and is, of course, Tsotsi, a
slick critical darling from South Africa about a very bad boy and how he got that way and what happens to teach him the
error of his ways. It is about stealing a baby from some rich people and discovering that this isn’t a very good thing to
do. If the ads are in need of a fresh new rave, one could say that:
Tsotsi is Raising Arizona sans fun!
Now hold on. It’s technically an okay film. Especially considering that Tsotsi was made by an actor (Gavin Hood), it is
unusually competent. If you’d like to go drown in outrageously pious filmmaking for an hour and half, you could do a lot
worse; the direction is tight, the setting (from the funky township of Soweto to rich folks’ gated ‘hoods around
Johannesburg) is elegantly rendered, and the performances are generally plausible and occasionally (though not
superlatively) touching. In other words, yep, this is standard-issue Oscar-bait.
So what’s the problem? The whole production plays out like some slightly extended “important” American television
drama (albeit with even more graphic violence) or the work of somebody desperate to become John Singleton. I went to
film school with John Singleton, thus it would be reasonable for me to be a bit jealous of his success or whatever. But I
like him. He’s gifted. When he goes to the ‘hood, he knows his milieu, and he delivers the goods -- engaging and painful
-- with no shortage of style or emotional legitimacy.
Comparatively, Hood feels like a copycat, delivering little more here than Fresh II or City of God II or Menace III
Society, with only the South African locations and Kwaito (South African hip-hop) music to distinguish his project. Call it
Hood'z n the Township. Tsotsi’s script is totally Screenwriting 101, the characters (culled from a novel I admit I haven’t
read) are all two-dimensional Types, and the theme: Hey, violence begets violence. Well, you don’t say!
If you feel like trudging through the piety, though, here’s what you’ll get: The talented Presley Chweneyagae debuts as
the eponymous gang-banger -- a good young actor playing a bad young man. Clearly, he has learned the acting adage:
"Don't just do something -- stand there!" Okay so far. Tsotsi (“Thug”) and his gang are very bad kids, offing an old man
on a train in a particularly yucky way for a small stash of cash -- however Tsotsi himself is the baddest. Like many a
young man or vice president or terrible journalist, Tsotsi lives to hurt other people, and at this he’s quite adept.
All of this gradually begins to change one evening when he shoots a rich woman and steals her Beemer…which happens
to have her baby son in the back seat. Oops! Now Tsotsi is Mr. Mom, and has to learn how to care for a squalling
infant! How? Badly, of course! Hello, High Concept; Bye-bye, Sustained Interest! Thus we are treated to several bits of
business involving Tsotsi shoving the kid into a box or a diaper made (one hopes) of an “alternative” weekly paper, or
begrudgingly picking bugs off him or whatever it is that makes cracker'n'cheese-mad movie mavens roar their absolute
approval for not-gang-banger movies at otherwise polite gatherings. Kind of like when you put a kitty on the screen, half
the audience is going to go, “Awww!” -- when you put a gang-banger juggling a baby on the screen, the film juries are
going to go, “Awwward!”
What’s to like? Well, the cinematography (by Lance Gewer) is superb, as is the film’s length (a brisk 94 minutes). Nasty,
brutish and short this movie is indeed! Fortunately, there are a few other saving graces, particularly in the supporting
cast. They’re all up to the task -- alas, if only the task were more challenging. Hood is a bludgeoningly manipulative
director (with a conspicuous little boner for A Clockwork Orange), milking every melodramatic moment (including
milking!) in the cheapest, crudest way, and this grows tedious very fast (Ooh! Bad man kicks dog!). Nonetheless, praise
for rising above Hood’s hamfisted agenda must be delivered to Terry Pheto as the unjustly lonely young mother who
dares to introduce Tsotsi to human sensitivity, and to the actor whose name I cannot find who plays the homeless cripple
who could almost be Marty Feldman’s long-lost wild-eyed brother. He's good, too.
I cannot be so kind to Hood -- which is fine, because many other people will be. This movie needs much harsher
criticism than it’s getting, and while we’re at it, it is worthwhile for the general public to consider the difference between
a complex environment and a simpleminded movie set within that environment.
This is an appropriate moment to say that sloppy old Peter Travers should retire and give me his job (the guy can no
more tell a Mercedes from a BMW than a play from a novel, and enough with the insipid gushing already).
Tsotsi
Entertainment Value: 2/13
Style: 9/13
Philosophical Insight: 7/13
-Gregory Weinkauf, 23 February, 2006
The pre-celebrated Tsotsi busts every beat strictly by the numbers.
BY GREGORY WEINKAUF
Oh my God have you seen Tootsie!?”
I froze, carrot-stick in hand, and regarded the shouter. She was middle-aged, pretending to be younger, shoving seeded
crackers and some sort of cheese paste into her mouth. A similarly engaged woman cawed, “I haven’t yet, but I can’t
wait to! I heard it’s wonderful!”
(Indeed, I thought to myself. It’s one of the better Dustin Hoffman movies, and that adorable Davis girl who recently
became President even makes a nice little cameo.)
The cracker-woman spun toward me. “Have you seen it?”
Inferring what she meant (for we were all grazing at a recent Golden Globes gathering), I responded frankly. “Yes, I
have.”
“What did you think?”
“It’s well assembled, but honestly I don’t like gang-banger movies.”
The woman glared at me, cracker-crumbs and bits of white goop flecked all over her thick lipstick. “It’s not a gang-
banger movie,” she sneered.
“I know, I know, it’s about…redemption,” I hastily added, verifying my innate humanity, then I let the topic slide and
chewed the crudités. Hey, if a movie specifically about a gang-banger is somehow not a gang-banger movie, it’s a whole
new creative world of semantics out there. More fun for me. I briefly wondered how many times this ravenous zealot
had been divorced, guessed eight or nine, then wandered away.
The movie she was praising and mispronouncing (very possibly without having seen it) was and is, of course, Tsotsi, a
slick critical darling from South Africa about a very bad boy and how he got that way and what happens to teach him the
error of his ways. It is about stealing a baby from some rich people and discovering that this isn’t a very good thing to
do. If the ads are in need of a fresh new rave, one could say that:
Tsotsi is Raising Arizona sans fun!
Now hold on. It’s technically an okay film. Especially considering that Tsotsi was made by an actor (Gavin Hood), it is
unusually competent. If you’d like to go drown in outrageously pious filmmaking for an hour and half, you could do a lot
worse; the direction is tight, the setting (from the funky township of Soweto to rich folks’ gated ‘hoods around
Johannesburg) is elegantly rendered, and the performances are generally plausible and occasionally (though not
superlatively) touching. In other words, yep, this is standard-issue Oscar-bait.
So what’s the problem? The whole production plays out like some slightly extended “important” American television
drama (albeit with even more graphic violence) or the work of somebody desperate to become John Singleton. I went to
film school with John Singleton, thus it would be reasonable for me to be a bit jealous of his success or whatever. But I
like him. He’s gifted. When he goes to the ‘hood, he knows his milieu, and he delivers the goods -- engaging and painful
-- with no shortage of style or emotional legitimacy.
Comparatively, Hood feels like a copycat, delivering little more here than Fresh II or City of God II or Menace III
Society, with only the South African locations and Kwaito (South African hip-hop) music to distinguish his project. Call it
Hood'z n the Township. Tsotsi’s script is totally Screenwriting 101, the characters (culled from a novel I admit I haven’t
read) are all two-dimensional Types, and the theme: Hey, violence begets violence. Well, you don’t say!
If you feel like trudging through the piety, though, here’s what you’ll get: The talented Presley Chweneyagae debuts as
the eponymous gang-banger -- a good young actor playing a bad young man. Clearly, he has learned the acting adage:
"Don't just do something -- stand there!" Okay so far. Tsotsi (“Thug”) and his gang are very bad kids, offing an old man
on a train in a particularly yucky way for a small stash of cash -- however Tsotsi himself is the baddest. Like many a
young man or vice president or terrible journalist, Tsotsi lives to hurt other people, and at this he’s quite adept.
All of this gradually begins to change one evening when he shoots a rich woman and steals her Beemer…which happens
to have her baby son in the back seat. Oops! Now Tsotsi is Mr. Mom, and has to learn how to care for a squalling
infant! How? Badly, of course! Hello, High Concept; Bye-bye, Sustained Interest! Thus we are treated to several bits of
business involving Tsotsi shoving the kid into a box or a diaper made (one hopes) of an “alternative” weekly paper, or
begrudgingly picking bugs off him or whatever it is that makes cracker'n'cheese-mad movie mavens roar their absolute
approval for not-gang-banger movies at otherwise polite gatherings. Kind of like when you put a kitty on the screen, half
the audience is going to go, “Awww!” -- when you put a gang-banger juggling a baby on the screen, the film juries are
going to go, “Awwward!”
What’s to like? Well, the cinematography (by Lance Gewer) is superb, as is the film’s length (a brisk 94 minutes). Nasty,
brutish and short this movie is indeed! Fortunately, there are a few other saving graces, particularly in the supporting
cast. They’re all up to the task -- alas, if only the task were more challenging. Hood is a bludgeoningly manipulative
director (with a conspicuous little boner for A Clockwork Orange), milking every melodramatic moment (including
milking!) in the cheapest, crudest way, and this grows tedious very fast (Ooh! Bad man kicks dog!). Nonetheless, praise
for rising above Hood’s hamfisted agenda must be delivered to Terry Pheto as the unjustly lonely young mother who
dares to introduce Tsotsi to human sensitivity, and to the actor whose name I cannot find who plays the homeless cripple
who could almost be Marty Feldman’s long-lost wild-eyed brother. He's good, too.
I cannot be so kind to Hood -- which is fine, because many other people will be. This movie needs much harsher
criticism than it’s getting, and while we’re at it, it is worthwhile for the general public to consider the difference between
a complex environment and a simpleminded movie set within that environment.
This is an appropriate moment to say that sloppy old Peter Travers should retire and give me his job (the guy can no
more tell a Mercedes from a BMW than a play from a novel, and enough with the insipid gushing already).
Tsotsi
Entertainment Value: 2/13
Style: 9/13
Philosophical Insight: 7/13
-Gregory Weinkauf, 23 February, 2006
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| Tsotsi's hamfisted direction benefits from sporadic bursts of visual poetry. © 2006 Miramax Films |