Jump the Gun

Johannesburg, a town where a violent crime occurs every 17 seconds. This is the first film to take the lid off the new South Africa, to create a scenario around living, breathing individuals coming to terms with life in these post-Mandela times. There's poor white Clint, who thinks that the country's getting 'very black' and gun-ownership will solve his problems; there's Minnie, a white prostitute who drinks and has lost her kid; Gugu, who's black and wants to sing in a band, and will sleep with whoever it takes. There's Thabo, who studied and got out of Soweto, and Zoo, who stayed but has changed from township activist to car-hijacking gang leader - even if he is confined to a wheelchair. How these people, who've been brought up apart, get together, is a mix of sex, music and common decency. Great performances, notably from Newton's Clint and Michele Burgers' Minnie, make this a film, written and directed by one-time Mike Leigh collaborator Les Blair, that's genuinely original and genuinely magnificent.