Here’s a story worth telling told in an uninspired, shallow way. The Bang Bang Club was a group of photographers active in South Africa when the country was on the apparent verge of civil war as it neared its first democratic elections in 1994. The film establishes the major political opponents as supporters of the African National Congress (ANC, currently the dominant political power in South Africa) or the Inkhata Freedom Party (IFP, a mere shadow of its former self), which had some dealings with the then dominant white minority government.
The photographers are there to capture the action, by which I mean murders and slayings. They are Greg Marinovich (Ryan Phillipe), who is established early on as the film’s main protagonist; Ken Oosterbroek (Frank Rautenbach); Joao Silva (Neels van Jaarsveld); and Kevin Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is high on drugs nearly all the time. An unofficial member is Robin Comley (Malin Ackermann), who does the layout for “The Star” newspaper where the Club members mostly publish their pictures – unless it’s too graphic, in which case they’re sent to AP or Reuters.
Between the incessant “howzits!” and forced exclamations of “bru!”, The Bang Bang Club fails to characterise its characters. They have names and identifiable traits – Carter is the junkie, Silva the one with the accent, etc – but never register as characters. Poor Ackermann gets the worst deal: Comley is so underwritten that the character’s only function in the film is engage in a flimsy romance with Marinovich. Whether this happened in actuality or not is irrelevant; a film must succeed in making its events convincing, and this one fails in many respects. In the end, Comley is simply the Woman.
It doesn’t help that the dialogue is often trite. After everything he’s seen – the film has many images of violence, mayhem and brutality – Marinovich is reduced to saying “I hate them fucking all!” The film often reduces potentially powerful moments to inane exclamations. Emotionally, the film falls flat, even in its most challenging scenes, such as Carter getting the infamous shot of the dying Sudanese girl, a vulture just a few feet away. If we had any sort of connection with Carter, the eventual fallout of the picture would matter but Kitsch’s performance is so one-note any impact gets lost.
Director Steven Silver and his team deserve praise for reconstructing the period convincingly, and making the scenes of political confrontation quite kinetic. The film exhibits a high level of technical proficiency. But the film follows a tiring pattern: shooting township violence, then celebrations in a club/pub/bar, then some insufficient soul searching; repeat. Overall, in terms of characterisation, plotting and writing, The Bang Bang Club is a shamefully superficial film, and a wasted opportunity indeed.
The photographers are there to capture the action, by which I mean murders and slayings. They are Greg Marinovich (Ryan Phillipe), who is established early on as the film’s main protagonist; Ken Oosterbroek (Frank Rautenbach); Joao Silva (Neels van Jaarsveld); and Kevin Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is high on drugs nearly all the time. An unofficial member is Robin Comley (Malin Ackermann), who does the layout for “The Star” newspaper where the Club members mostly publish their pictures – unless it’s too graphic, in which case they’re sent to AP or Reuters.
Between the incessant “howzits!” and forced exclamations of “bru!”, The Bang Bang Club fails to characterise its characters. They have names and identifiable traits – Carter is the junkie, Silva the one with the accent, etc – but never register as characters. Poor Ackermann gets the worst deal: Comley is so underwritten that the character’s only function in the film is engage in a flimsy romance with Marinovich. Whether this happened in actuality or not is irrelevant; a film must succeed in making its events convincing, and this one fails in many respects. In the end, Comley is simply the Woman.
It doesn’t help that the dialogue is often trite. After everything he’s seen – the film has many images of violence, mayhem and brutality – Marinovich is reduced to saying “I hate them fucking all!” The film often reduces potentially powerful moments to inane exclamations. Emotionally, the film falls flat, even in its most challenging scenes, such as Carter getting the infamous shot of the dying Sudanese girl, a vulture just a few feet away. If we had any sort of connection with Carter, the eventual fallout of the picture would matter but Kitsch’s performance is so one-note any impact gets lost.
Director Steven Silver and his team deserve praise for reconstructing the period convincingly, and making the scenes of political confrontation quite kinetic. The film exhibits a high level of technical proficiency. But the film follows a tiring pattern: shooting township violence, then celebrations in a club/pub/bar, then some insufficient soul searching; repeat. Overall, in terms of characterisation, plotting and writing, The Bang Bang Club is a shamefully superficial film, and a wasted opportunity indeed.
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