PLOT: The anti-hero is a thug who escapes anonymously into the Johannesburg slums after robbing and killing. But faint stirrings of empathy and humanity emerge when he tries to care for a squalling baby.
Tsotsi is nasty, brutish and short. Just like the lives of its thug protagonists who ply their criminal trade in a Johannesburg slum.
But the film rises out of the muck in an astonishing way, despite the plot flaws and movie cliches that emerged from compacting and updating a story that originated in a 1961 Athol Fugard novel (which was unpublished until 1980).
The impact of the film seems to be universal, with the exception of some critics who find it contrived (Jessica Winter called it "a widescreen wallow in socially enforced slum nihilism" in the Village Voice).
Despite the few naysayers, Tsotsi is winning awards. It rumbled to the People's Choice Award at the Toronto filmfest last September. It seems destined to win the best foreign language film Oscar on Sunday for South Africa (although it is a co-production with Britain).
At the heart is a breathtaking performance by South African actor Presley Chweneyagae. Often acting in silence, with his androgynous looks seemingly at odds with his fierce and feral demeanor, Chweneyagae lets us examine Tsotsi with interest and even compassion while we recoil from his deeds and his merciless attitude.
The word "tsotsi" in the local townships dialect of Tsotsi-taal (which is the language of the film, with English subtitles) literally means thug. It is the nickname for Chweneyagae's anti-hero, the leader of a trio of criminals who rob and kill, mercilessly.
But the movie, like all of the legendary playwright-actor-novelist Fugard's work, delves into the human soul even in the most dire circumstances. Through flashbacks (some of them awkward), we see how Tsotsi got to be who he is, how AIDS and prejudice and deplorable economic conditions got him here in the post-Apartheid world that the freedom-fighting Fugard once yearned for.
But Fugard's source material and now writer-director Gavin Hood's tough, dark, acidic film do not allow social studies to be an excuse for bad behaviour. Through almost absurd circumstances -- Tsotsi finds himself ineptly trying to care for an infant without the means or training to do so -- our thug slowly starts to shed his past, to face responsibility for what he is doing in the present and to touch at least a glimmer of his humanity.
That journey is so compelling and so impassioned that audiences are swept into the human maelstrom.
BOTTOM LINE: Updated from a 1961 Athol Fugard novel, this searing portrait of a criminal shows a fractured yet still redeemable protagonist. It captivates audiences despite plot flaws, thanks to an extraordinary performance from South African Presley Chweneyagae.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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