Film: Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema
Release date: 30th August 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 118 mins
Director: Ralph Ziman
Starring: Daniel Buckland, Robert Hobbs, Eugene Khumbanyiwa, Motlatsi Mahloko, Jafta Mamabolo
Genre: Action/Crime/Drama
Studio: Anchor Bay
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: South Africa
Hoping to follow the success of 2005’s Tsotsi and last year’s District 9 comes another film from South Africa in director Ralph Ziman’s Gangster’s Paradise: Jerusalema. Based on real events, the movie recounts the rise of carjacker-turned-property-racketeer Lucky Kunene against the backdrop of post-Apartheid South Africa.
The story moves from 1994 to the present, starting off in the slums of Soweto, as young Lucky works his way up from stealing cars at gun point with his best friend Zakes, before moving into the more hazardous world of ram-raiding and bank heists.
After one such robbery goes awry with only the two young boys escaping from a shoot-out with the police, Lucky makes his escape to Johannesburg, a ‘new Jerusalem’ of unrivaled opportunities opened up by post-Apartheid social transition.
The story then jumps forward a number of years, and we find the adult Lucky now involved in an ill-fated taxi business, struggling to compete with ruthless and violent rival taxi gangs. Soon Lucky seizes on a plan to control the lucrative housing projects of the Hillbrow tenements, scheming rent-strikes and squat-takeovers against the nervy white landlords. By his own admission, happy to play the race card when it suits him, Lucky exploits the poor black tenants in Johannesburg’s shabby housing blocks while simultaneously condemning the white slumlords for creating the conditions that allowed him to gain a foothold.
An ambivalent character, it is never made entirely clear whether Lucky is motivated by genuine social altruism or simply the desire to realise his dream of a villa by the sea. In any case, Lucky soon proves too good at his new post, and it is not long before the police begin to take a closer interest in the activities of this self-styled modern-day Robin Hood.
The attentions of an innately suspicious police detective combined with an escalating conflict with a Nigerian drug lord threaten to bring Lucky’s growing empire tumbling down…
Ziman’s movie will inevitably draw comparisons with Brazil’s City Of God, with its shanty towns and young protagonist drawn into a life of crime offering the only chance of escape from grinding poverty. In reality, it owes more to the standard Hollywood crime and hood genres, resulting in the overwhelming feeling that we’ve seen this all many times before. When the gangsters stage a heist on a security van inspired by a scene from Heat, it’s symptomatic of a film possessing few original ideas of its own. After Ziman proceeds to poach parts of Scarface, Goodfellas, Superfly and American Gangster, it only results in a movie too derivative to have any real impact.
Though it gets off to an explosive start, any early promise is soon diminished by an overreliance on a number of hackneyed plot devices. The voice over from what we take to be the dead protagonist (à la Casino); the story told as an elaborate flashback structured in the form of a journalistic interview; and the “Inspired by real events” caption, which often reveals less a concern with authenticity than a lack of conviction in a movie’s ability to stand on its own. There is also a reluctance to hold a shot for more than five seconds at a time, the hyper-activity of its jump-cuts owing more to MTV than to Godard (an impression that strikes you even before learning of Ziman’s past life as a music video director for the likes of Toni Braxton and Ozzy Osbourne).
That said, as a thrill-a-minute action movie, Gangster’s definitely delivers. Ziman clearly has a target audience in mind, and its set plays of bank heists and violent gun battles between rival gangs and the police are well staged. The incredibly eventful plot proceeds with such furious pace that you barely notice its 118 minute running time.
In Johannesburg, Gangster’s Paradise has a cityscape to rival Chicago or New York. Ziman also makes good use of contemporary African pop music. The real star of the film, though, is the actor who plays young Lucky, Jafta Mamabolo. He’s easily the best thing here, and his performance contains the perfect measure of compassion and steely determination. The best moments involve him – be it scenes where he’s shown caring for his younger sister and brothers in his mother’s absence or the humorous episode where he and Zakes hijack a car only to realise neither of them can drive, forcing them to bring their terrified victim along with them for an impromptu driving lesson. It’s a shame, then, when the movie jumps forward ten years and he’s replaced by Rapulana Seiphemo in the lead role. He’s a formidable presence but slightly lacking in charisma, and neither his relationship with a woman from a wealthy Jewish family nor the ease with which he charms (usually female) bureaucrats and journalists is entirely convincing. The film continues to whizz along, but much of its heart seems to go with Mamabolo’s departure.
The breathless pace of the movie is part of its strength, but it also betrays its main weakness. There’s little room left for reflection, and it provides even less scope for examining any deeper moral or socio-political issues, which is really the most intriguing aspect surrounding the film. When Ziman does make tentative attempts to shape the work politically, and acknowledge the historical and cultural repercussions of the country's painful racial history, it is both didactic and crudely applied, personified largely in the figure of a racist police detective determined to bring Lucky down.
Finally, when Lucky is shown reading a biography of Donald Trump, it’s indicative of a film that suffers not only from its debt to Hollywood but also from its unquestioning assumption of US-style capitalism as the only way forward. Rejecting his mother’s advocacy of the Bible, Lucky invests his hopes in a system whose promises may be every bit as distant and illusory as any biblical promised land. Not that you’d guess it from the decidedly celebratory feel of the movie’s ending, however.
There’s a fascinating story about post-Apartheid South Africa and the division between rich and poor, white and black, behind Gangster’s Paradise, but it all gets rather lost amid the relentless action and breakneck pace of Ziman’s movie. A well made and entertaining enough picture - albeit a fairly uninspired one. GJK
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