I Am All Girls

A detective investigating child trafficking in South Africa cannot get to the upper reaches of the network. At the same time somebody is killing the men inside it one by one. Looking for the killer, she realises they want the same thing, and the investigation starts running in two directions. The subject is not the murders but the official route being blocked. The dilemma is plain: the side working within the law gets nowhere and the side outside it gets results. Rather than leaving that as a question the film leans one way, which is its weakest point. The form uses the known tools of the genre: dark framing, heavy scoring and abrupt violence. Johannesburg was shot in real locations and the look of the city is the strongest element. The starting point is real. Child trafficking has been a long-standing public issue in South Africa and the film says so directly at the close. The story itself, though, is fiction rather than a particular case. Erica Wessels plays the detective, Deon Lotz a man inside the network and Masasa Mbangeni her police partner. Donovan Marsh directs. It was released on Netflix. Who it is for: viewers interested in dark crime films and South African productions. Who it is not for: anyone the subject will strain, or who objects to a revenge narrative being vindicated.