Rating: D+
Dir: Quentin Krog
Star: Bennie Fourie, Marlee van der Merwe, Laudo Liebenberg, Frank Opperman
a.k.a. Ander Mens
I tagged this as a comedy-thriller, even though I don’t think I laughed once. That may not be the film’s fault so much, as the result of a really painful dub from Afrikaans into English. There are points where the tone definitely was aiming for comedy, but any potential humour was sucked away by the porn-level delivery of the voice actors doing the dubbing, with some scenes apparently recorded in a bathroom. If I’d realized that before starting, I might not have bothered, strongly preferring films in the original language. But once I click play, I tend to be committed to a movie, for good or bad. And as far as the comedic elements go here, this skews hard towards the latter.
The thriller elements revolve around milquetoast accountant Daniël Niemand (Fourie), whose marriage has fallen apart, affecting his work as innocent book-keeper to mob boss Frank Redelinghuys (Opperman). Through a series of misadventures largely too uninteresting to detail – the image, top, will give you some idea – he becomes a key witness in the case being assembled by Insp. Xander Louw (Liebenberg) against Redelinghuys. Daniël goes into witness protection, except his handler, Erica Kruger (van der Merwe) thinks he’s a paedophile and tries to kill him, due to an administrative mix-up with the file she is given. Frank sends his lieutenant to make sure Daniël won’t testify, which sends the witness on the run with Erica.
The problems are mostly in the middle, because there’s far too much of Daniël and Erica sitting around, driving, or for occasional variety, sitting around while driving. They briefly stumble into the middle of a gunfight, then it’s back to the driving, as Daniël takes Erica to hide out with his dysfunctional family at a wedding. His Mother doesn’t like him very much. Which is okay, because I don’t like Daniël very much either. Inevitably, the cops and gangsters catch up with them, and… Well, precious little approaching the poster ever takes place, and it’s undeniably the case that Erica is a supporting role, with Daniël the main character. The original artwork for the movie is considerably more honest in this department.
On the other hand, I would have rapidly scrolled past that poster on Tubi. So I do understand the distribution company’s preference to side-step truth in advertising, in favor of commercial viability. However, this just deepens the sense of disappointment, which increased the further I went into this. Normally, a film’s grade is largely solidified by the mid-point. However, this kept on declining steadily thereafter, as its lack of merit became increasingly more apparent. Some of the rural African landscapes are very pretty, and the cinematography just about does them justice. The soundtrack has a nice selection of hummable classical tunes. The positives stop there. By the end, a genocide of white South Africans was beginning to sound like it might have its upside.