Sawubona and welcome back to another Movie and TV Review!! This week’s movie on the chopping block reeks of death and violence. And if you know anything about me, I don’t love it. Being reminded of one’s mortality dampens my fun substantially. Anypoops, that’s what I get for not reading the fine print again. I was determined to watch Tsotsi or thug, after learning of the deceased actor, Presley Oageng Chweneyagae.

All this talk of death is putting me in a foul mood so let’s get this over with.

We find ourselves in the Motherland, Africa. Namely, a township near a train station in Khomanani, South Africa. The opening scene features a gruesome and senseless murder of an older gentleman who isn’t quite well-to-do but isn’t starving either. My guy Tsotsi and his gang surround the poor fellow and murder him in plain sight. Aap and Boston hold his lifeless form upright as Butcher removes the murder weapon, a thin screwdriver-esque dagger. Cut to Boston, the would-be teacher, sick, hacking bile from the night’s previous activities. He cries Tsotsi has no decency, and the two duke it out. More versed in violence, Tsotsi bests Boston and he’s off to the races, Tsotsi runs away presumable in shame. Once the adrenaline wore off Tsotsi aka David is in an unnamed neighborhood during a rainstorm. A car pulls up to a gated house and a woman exits the car demanding entry. Tsotsi seeing his prize, shoots the poor woman and careens into the night. Unbeknownst to him there is an unmarked baby, later dubbed David, playing passenger.

The film, I believe, features themes of choice and circumstances. Our antagonist Tsotsi, came from poverty and violence. The film showed flashbacks of when he was no more than ten years of age running in fear after his drunken father, after manhandling his already sickly mother and breaks their pet dog’s back. As a fan of Trevor Noah, I listened to his autobiography, Born a Crime, many times. The man is a comedic genius, but I never pictured the shanty townships he described in his book to be as bad as they were in Tsotsi. Before that hovel, Tsotsi lived among other children in a complex of large round cinder blocks. I wondered how he managed to move out of the cinder block garden and into that upscale wrought-iron shack. Must have taken a lot of robbing, killing, and saving to afford such a luxury. All jokes aside, Tsotsi is no fool, he considers and asks questions. He questions Morris, the cripple, he clearly had no qualms about killing why he chooses to carry on living despite being no better than a mangy dog. As if looking for a reason for existing himself. If that makes any sense.

Anypoops, Boston was wrong. I believe Tsotsi had some decency, he’s just selective about it. Weirdly, his unintentional kidnapping of baby David was a much-needed reality check. He was forced to face the consequences of his actions. I half expected him to run away with baby David into the poverty-ridden sunset, but instead, he returned the boy to his parents. I also expected to take the coward’s way out by provoking the police into a full-on shoot-out, but he quietly raised his arms in surrender. I wondered what or who he became during and after his stay in prison because he still is a criminal. Did he succumb to the environment and become more violent or change his ways?

Tsotsi is by no means innocent, but on some level, he made the best of the scrapes he was given. I don’t like judging (though I do it all the time), you and I could have easily been in his shoes exhibiting the same behaviors as Tsotsi. But then what about the countless other villagers in his township not stealing and killing?

Sidenote: in that whole neighborhood, nobody heard that baby crying? My guy left baby David in a shopping bag full of ants biting him, and you’re telling me nobody heard those cries? Were they all that terrified of him or did they just not care?

Anypoops, I give Tsotsi 3 out of 5 rose petals. I didn’t like this film much. Let me know what you thought of our conversation. Drop a like or comment.