The Bang Bang Club (***½)

Directed by: Steven Silver

Starring: Ryan Phillipe, Taylor Kitsch, Frank Rautenbach, Neels van Jaarsveld, Malin Ackerman,

Seen: July 22^nd 2011

***½ Out of ****

The Bang Bang Club reinforced my belief that I grew up in a very protected bubble in South Africa. I knew there were troubles and difficulty, but nothing more. Granted, I was between 10 and 14 years old during the events portrayed in this movie, but it did all happen less than 75km from where I lived. The movie chronicles the lives of 4 front-line photographers right in the thick of it during the 4 year run-up to South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. These guys were relatively close to fearless, as they strived to always be in no man’s land between the fighting forces of the Inkhata Freedom Party and the ANC, where people were killed for simply belonging to any of those parties, or even worse, for being part of an African race associated with one of those parties.

Greg Marinovich (Phillippe) started out on his own, one day driving by a disturbance where he gets out to take his pictures and happens upon 3 photographers, Kevin Carter (Kitsch), Ken Oosterbroek (Rautenbach) and João Silva (Van Jaarsveld). Oosterbroek treats him with contempt, Silva is almost indifferent, and Carter tells him to get closer for better pictures. This prompts him to follow the Inkhata warriors into their hostel, where he narrowly escapes as he happens upon their leader, who approves of him being there to tell their side of the story. He takes some amazing pictures, and when he gets to the offices of The Star in Johannesburg, he’s almost immediately inducted as a freelance photographer, joining up with Oosterbroek, Silva and Carter to form what will eventually become known as The Bang Bang Club.

The group members are constantly in peril as they push the envelope of safely navigating the war-torn townships, and when not on assignment the group socialise together, each picking up a girl somewhere, surprisingly building relationships instead of using their rock ‘n’ roll star status to recycle them. At first Marinovich tries to keep his relationship with Star editor Robin Comley (Ackerman) secret, but soon enough it spills out. Marinovich endangers himself more than the others once again, witnessing the murder of an accused (of what has become almost irrelevant), and he happens to take a perfectly timed picture which wins him a Pulitzer. As the group grows in stature, they get brasher in their battleground fearlessness, and in an unfortunate accident caused by terribly undertrained peacekeeping force members, the group is unravelled in a moment of confusion and fear. Carter sets out for Sudan, where he takes his famous Pulitzer winning picture of the starving child with a vulture waiting in the background, the aftermath of which causes him to unravel to his infamous suicide. Silva and Marinovich are left behind, and they were the ones to write the book this movie was based on.

Ryan Phillippe is very good as the main character Marinovich pulled into a world of guts and glory. He’s surrounded by good performances in Rautenbach’s Oosterbroek, Van Jaarsveld’s Silva and Ackerman’s Comley; with an explosive (if not always pitch perfect) performance from Taylor Kitsch as the somewhat legendary Kevin Carter – this young actor has a bright future ahead of him, as he carries a gravity that pulls the screen towards him, even if he’s not always the focus of the scene.

The Bang Bang Club is a very good movie about a very disturbing time in South Africa’s history, and even if this is not your kind of movie, I still recommend it, a tough watch, but an essential one.