Ian Roberts Movies
A solemn look at South African apartheid, Arthur Penn's claustrophobic drama centers on a pair of political interrogations, separated by a decade. The film's first part, set in 1988, centers on the imprisonment of Marty Strydom (Eric Stoltz), an Afrikaaner university professor held as a political prisoner under suspicion of conspiring with anti-government forces. His case falls into the hands of the villainous Colonel Kruger (Nigel Hawthorne), a brilliant and evil torturer determined to break the idealistic Strydom's spirit. The conclusion takes place nearly a decade later, after apartheid's fall. Now it is Krueger who is under confinement, and subjected to unrelenting questioning from a black South African (Louis Gossett Jr.) looking to beat Kruger at his own manipulative game. While offering numerous powerful confrontations between its characters, Bima Stagg's screenplay provides few narrative surprises, and some may find the film's limited setting and bare-bones treatments monotonous. However, Penn's stark style suits the harsh subject matter and keeps the focus strongly upon the cast, who provide appropriately intense performances. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Stoltz, Nigel Hawthorne, (more)
Alan Paton's classic novel about two fathers coming to terms with personal loss and the emotional scars inflicted on South Africa during the era of apartheid was brought to the screen for a second time with this adaptation, the first major film produced in South Africa after Nelson Mandela's election ended mandatory white rule in that nation. Rev. Stephen Kumalo (James Earl Jones) is a minister from a poverty-stricken farming community who travels to Johannesburg for the first time in search of his son Absalom (Eric Miyeni), who moved to the city some time back and has gone missing. Kumalo regards the big city as a den of iniquity, and his low expectations are not betrayed; he is robbed and beaten shortly after he arrives, and when he visits his brother John (Charles S. Dutton), he discovers that Absalom has become a petty thief with a pregnant girlfriend, his sister Gertrude (Dambisa Kente) is a prostitute, and John has renounced his faith in God and advocates the violent overthrow of South Africa's white leadership. James Jarvis (Richard Harris) -- a wealthy white landowner from the same part of the country as Kumalo -- has also arrived in Johannesburg, also with sad personal business to attend to; his son, a well-liked activist for the rights of the city's black majority population, was killed during a robbery. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Earl Jones, Richard Harris, (more)
John G. Avildsen, director of Rocky and The Karate Kid, adapts Bryce Courtenay's compassionate novel about the coming of age of a white anti-apartheid activist during the years of World War II in South Africa. Avildsen cumbersomely grafts Courtenay's tale of fighting apartheid onto a Hollywood-style fight-for-the-championship bout. Seven-year-old P.K. (Guy Witcher) is a white South African raised on his family's farm by his Zulu nanny. When his mother takes ill, he is sent away to an Afrikaner boarding school, where he is picked on and nearly killed by the school bully during a pep rally for Hitler. P.K. survives and is sent to live with his grandfather. He befriends Doc (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a jailed German musician, and a black inmate (Morgan Freeman), who teaches P.K. how to use his fists for some quick boxing moves. At 12, P.K. (now played by Simon Fenton), witnesses black inmates being cruelly humiliated by their racist white jailers. Taking note of P.K.'s fluidity for languages, his black mentor spreads the word that P.K. is the incarnation of the mythic Rain Maker, a messianic liberator who is destined to unite all the African tribes. By the time he's 18 years old, P.K. (now played by Stephen Dorff) is becoming the Great White Hope for the black Africans, boxing his way into their hearts and minds. He joins up with an old boxing foe (Alois Moyo), who is now a township activist, and takes up the apartheid struggle. But things get confusing when P.K. falls in love with the daughter (Fay Masterson) of an apartheid leader. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Dorff, Morgan Freeman, (more)
- 1988
This moving family drama is set in South Africa. It concerns an "interracial" marriage between a white policeman and a white-looking woman who is unable to document her racial heritage, and under apartheid this earns her the classification "colored." Since interracial marriages are illegal, the couple must resort to all sorts of evasions and dodges in order not to stand out. The real difficulty comes when their son grows up and wants to marry his white girlfiend. Because he, too, cannot document his racial heritage, they are unable to marry. Also, because of his racial classification, he cannot perform many jobs, is unable to live in most areas, etc. His rage at his parents for having "done this" to him has a tragic result. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Flynn, Jana Cilliers, (more)
This adventure is taken from the popular British comic strip by Norman Pett that ran between 1932 until 1963. Jane (Kirsten Hughes) and her companion Jungle Jack Buck (Sam Jones) travel with a team of British adventurers to Africa and the mythical Lost City. Their mission is to find the fortune in diamonds before they fall into the hands of the Nazis, led by Lola Pagnola (Maud Adams). Also with Jane is the Colonel (Robin Bailey), a proper gentleman who is reminded of his "club" when he enters a centuries-old underground tomb. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sam Jones, Maud Adams, (more)
