Stander

Andre Stander is a policeman in Johannesburg. He is counted able and rises quickly. Then he is assigned to a demonstration. Fire is opened on the crowd and he fires too. There are children among the dead. Stander goes home and is never the same. One day during his lunch break he walks into a bank and robs it. Then he goes back to the station and runs the investigation into that robbery. He does it again. In the end he is caught. In prison he meets two men and the three escape. Then the robberies speed up. Bronwen Hughes directs. Thomas Jane plays Stander; Dexter Fletcher, David O'Hara and Deborah Kara Unger are in the cast. It is a South African, Canadian, German and British co-production. Its ground is real; Andre Stander was a known name in South Africa in the eighties and the events were widely reported. The film uses the apartheid period not as background but as the reason for the character's change. It was shot in real locations in South Africa. The matter it treats is guilt; the man cannot make up for what he did and the robberies are a form of self destruction. The narrative does not make a hero of Stander and gives his acts no political meaning. The narrative shows the part played by the press as well; for a while he becomes popular. The ending keeps to history. Its limit is structure; the narrative speeds up in the second half and the character's inner life stays missing. Who it is for: viewers who like true crime narrative and period films. Who it is not for: it is bleak, hard, and the ending bitter.