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Stander (2003)

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From Time Out London

White South African cop as folk-hero, anyone? In this slick retelling of true-life events from 1976 Johannesburg, captain André Stander (Thomas Jane), sickened by a police massacre of black protesters, asks to be removed from riot duty. Life away from the front line unexpectedly allows him to exploit the force’s overstretched resources by pulling off a series of bank robberies, his continuing crime spree capturing the headlines. If that sounds like an unlikely combination, it certainly plays that way. From the striking opening aerial shot laying out the topography of apartheid, the movie’s put together for maximum immediacy, the visceral intensity of its early riot sequence giving way to squealing tyres and shoot-outs as Stander’s gang strut their illicit stuff until this Afrikaner anti-hero realises he can’t run forever. The individual components certainly impress, but finding a persuasive through-line proves more problematic: the ambitious attempt to cast the protagonist as both product of a corrupt regime and icon of resistance against it sits uneasily with the breezy heist material, and prompts another awkward gear-change as the tone darkens in the final stages. American leading man Jane has the right rugged looks and copes with the accent, but can’t quite invest Stander with the anguish-of-a-nation depth the filmmakers seem to be willing into the character. Sashaying along to a loose-limbed score from The Free Association, and replete with cherishably grisly ’70s architecture and interiors, the movie’s not unenjoyable as funky crime flick – but such pleasures feel oddly inappropriate with the spectre of apartheid lurking in the background.

Author: TJ

Time Out London Issue 1814: May 25-June 1 2005

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