Tsotsi (2005)Tsotsi (2006) is a good film, good enough, apparently, to win an Oscar for best foreign film. The acting is solid, the cinematography is solid, the sound track is effective and not overbearing, and a lot of scenes are refreshingly not predictable. The only major criticism people have had of this tale of a South African ghetto thug who accidentally steals a baby and turns his life around is that it is fakey, that the leader of a gang which has “progressed” to killing people would never go soft taking care of a baby. I wouldn’t know. Come to think of it, what would you have to know in order to declare this character change phoney? Well, you’d have to know a lot of young thugs, and know them over a long enough time to see what, if anything, changes their criminal behaviour. More specifically, you should know South African teenaged thugs and the culture they live in. I’m surprised that there are several professional movie critics in America who know all that.
Although the film is well-done and worth watching, I think it could have been even better if it had revealed the various reasons why Tsotsi was so affected by the infant. Instead, the movie implicitly asks us to accept that Tsotsi is captivated with the kid and then see where it leads.