Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Ryan Phillippe, Frank Rautenbach, Neels Van Jaarsveld, Patrick Lyster, Russell Savadier, Malin Åkerman
Director: Steven Silver
Genre: Drama
Rating: C+
The Bang Bang Club has two things to really support it: an interesting (and based on truth) story, and a good cast. These tend to be the makings of great films, which is why it's so disappointing that this is not really an all together good movie.
Bang Bang Club follows Kevin Carter (Kitsch), Ken Oosterbroek (Rautenbach), João Silva (Van Jaarsveld), and newcomer Greg Marinovich (Phillippe), a group of photographers who together form the Bang Bang Club. The group is known for the extremes that they have gone to in order to get photos representing the lives - and deaths - of people living in Apartheid South Africa. Joining them is their editor, Robin Comley (Åkerman).
So, I do have to say that while the acting is good and the story interesting, there's something lost in Bang Bang Club, and I'm really not sure just what it is. Somehow, the way the story is told removes the actual excitement and the fact that the timing of it is unclear for a lot of the film makes the historical significance of the events a bit unclear. The passage of time is a bit wonky; it's suggested that a lot of time passes, but I'm not really sure how much, or how quickly, or really if any time did in fact pass. The acting is good and the idea of it is good, but the story itself is in need of development.
Another thing that I had a problem with was the casting itself. While I don't think that the acting was bad, it really does annoy me when people are hired to fake an accent. There are some actors who are great at it - Meryl Streep - and others who are not. The accents here were probably about midranged, but it still bothers me. If you're going to do a film about a group of South Africans, hire a group of South Africans. Not Ryan Phillippe.
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