THE BANG BANG CLUB REVIEW: Point and Shoot Doesn't Cut It for Narrative Films [2.5/5]
Sex, Drugs, and Bad, Bad South African Accents
[Rating 2.5/5] - dir. Steven Silver - 2010 - Canada - Rated R - 1h 46m - War/Drama
This is a great story. This is not a great movie. Each time an actor opens his mouth and tries to affect a South African accent, a tiny hole appears in the fabric of the film. By the time the credits roll, The Bang Bang Club is Swiss cheese.
This is a saccharine, misguided Entourage-meets-White Saviour romp, and that is wrong. The original members of the real “Bang-Bang Club”, a loose group of four-ish adventurous conflict photojournalists active in the early 1990s capturing the South African apartheid, do not mesh with their cheap, but handsome and game silver screen counterparts Ryan Phillipe and Taylor Kitsch (Greg Marinovich and Kevin Carter, respectively).
Here, thrills abound only for those born yesterday. Every stereotype one has come to expect from stories exploring a privileged white person’s journey into the centre of a group they at first perceive as “wild” and unmoored and then worthy of romanticizing in a reductive way is laid out here borderline proudly. Small dramatic turns during world building, such as when Phillipe’s “Marinovich” is first scared and then moved to awe by a seemingly “dangerous” celebration and hazing by and of locals, are only successful if the audience is as ignorant as the filmmaker thinks they are.
The real Bang-Bang Club produced relevant work, and apparently led complex lives. Director Steven Silver captures them only at their most salacious and thrilling, and robs The Bang Bang Club of leaving an impression that lingers, and therefore he falls short of doing justice to worthy subjects.
And they are handsome.
P.S.
For all its faults, there are, for lack of a more adult word, cool parts. Don’t show this to teenage boys. They will sign up to be conflict photographers on the spot, ring lights thrown over their shoulders like a stick and a tied handkerchief.
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The Bang Bang Club is available on CBC Gem.
Selected Movie Quote: “They're right. All those people who say it's our job to just sit and watch people die. They're right.”
[Rating 2.5/5] - dir. Steven Silver - 2010 - Canada - Rated R - 1h 46m - War/Drama