Greg Latter Movies

Bille August's inspirational docudrama Goodbye Bafana begins in 1968, with South Africa buried neck-deep in the horrors of apartheid and Nelson Mandela (Dennis Haysbert) -- then an underground leader of the African National Congress -- imprisoned on Robben Island for sedition. As the story opens, the native African population of the country -- 25,000,000 in number -- buckles beneath the crippling weight of the racist white minority, who control the Nationalist Party Government. The film follows the spiritual and psychological journey of James Gregory (Joseph Fiennes), a Caucasian Afrikaner who came of age on a farm in the Transkei and initially views all blacks as subhuman. Gregory also speaks Mandela's native language of Xhosa with perfect fluency, which makes him an ideal candidate to serve as warden of the Robben Island Prison and eavesdrop on Mandela and his inmates. What he fails to anticipate is the most unlikely and special of friendships (one of history's greatest) that burgeons between himself and Mandela -- and helps him evolve from a narrow-minded bigot with limited self-awareness to a sensitive, humane critic of social injustice with a heightened awareness of mankind's ill treatment of one another and a genuine level of love for his fellow man. As the friendship between Gregory and Mandela grows and matures, it symbolizes Africa's transition from the oppressiveness of Apartheid to the freedom of multi-racial democracy. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A South African police officer still haunted by the role he played in the brutal torture and murder of a young freedom fighter travels to the dying fishing town from which the boy came to beg the forgiveness of his grieving mother and father in first-time director Ian Gabriel's unflinching look at the crumbling emotional dams that came with the end of apartheid. Upon arriving in the crumbling town of Paternoster, ex-policeman Tertius Coetzee (Mummy star Arnold Vosloo) unleashes a suffocating torrent of despair and suppressed rage in the emotionally fragile Grootboom family. Though he has come to seek forgiveness for failing to prevent the grim demise of Daniel Grootboom, the crime Tertius has committed in allowing the murder to happen has already muted the emotions of his young victim's damaged family. Hendrik Grootboom (Zane Meas) is a stoic fisherman who holds out hope that the town will one day become prosperous again as son Ernest (Christo Davids) retreats into mathematics. Meanwhile, mother Magda (Denise Newman) and daughter Sannie (Quanita Adams) simply long for the days when things were less complicated. As the shockwaves of anger ripple through the Grootbooms' hearts and home, the enraged Sannie determines to settle the score with her brother's killer by ensuring that Tertius remains in Paternoster long enough for Daniel's vengeful friends to arrive in town. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

What would happen if a white child with a couple of odd talents -- one prophetic and one malodorous -- was found and raised by an appreciative, yet hapless African tribe? South African director Gray Hofmeyr attempts to find out in his 2002 family-oriented comedy entitled Mr. Bones. Shortly after surviving a plane accident, a mysterious youngster is discovered by the Kuvuki tribe just as the babe is fending off a hungry lion with explosive flatulence. This deed duly noted, the tribesmen adopt the child as one of their own and sometime later discover the boy also has great skill in divining the future from reading bones -- something the tribe considers a greatly respected skill. Henceforth, the boy is dubbed Bones (as an adult, played by Leon Schuster) and some years later is ordered by the tribal king Tsonga to seek a previously unknown heir Bones predicted to exist. Bones sets out to locate the heir, and decides that touring golf pro Vince Lee (David Ramsey) is the man, much to the consternation and protestations of Lee's agent, as well as a gambler with a lot of money at stake in Vince's victorious appearance at a local tournament. Mr. Bones was selected for inclusion into the African Horizons program at the 2002 Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide

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

A kickboxer decides he would like to retire, but tragically, his wife is killed in an explosion which sends him back into the ring. Soon he is involved in an unnaturally violent and crooked tournament. After finding out who is responsible for his wife's death he is intent upon revenge. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

In this youthful martial arts adventure, a young ninja teams up with his master to save a scientist's daughters from kidnappers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this African adventure, a soldier-of-fortune and his followers hack through the jungle in search of a millionaire' daughter who was kidnapped by a tribe as an offering for their hungry crocodile gods. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this actioner, a Middle-Eastern leader is threatening to detonate a nuclear bomb that he has planted in Miami and now a crack team of American and Russian soldiers must somehow stop him. This entry in the series is the first made without its original star, Chuck Norris. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Emissary is a second-echelon knock-off of The Ambassador (1984), itself a reworking of Elmore Leonard's 52 Pick-Up. While in Africa on a goodwill tour, an American politician and his wife are victimized by Soviet spies. Threatening to reveal horrible secrets about the politician's past, the Russians insist that he turn over top-secret documents. But this could trigger a nuclear war, so a lot of heavy soul-searching is in order. Robert Vaughn is the biggest "name" in the largely European and South Africa cast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jobman (Kevin Smith) is not only deaf, but he was born without a tongue, rendering him definitively mute. To add to his tribulations, he is black and living in apartheid-era South Africa. His father was a preacher, which would normally confer a pretty high social rank on him, but he is, in the eyes of blacks and white alike, only capable of manual labor - which he shuns. Despite his multply outcaste situation, he has a (common-law) wife and child. After a particularly grievous beating he receives while in the city, he steals back to the veldt to pick up his family and becomes a renegade. Everyone but his old childhood friend takes up arms against him, and many of them die for their trouble. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A group of eight South African mercenaries are driven to fatigue and insanity in this violent anti-war drama. Cooper (Sean Taylor) narrates as one of the soldiers led by the bloodthirsty O'Grady (Greg Latter). Set out on a search-and-destroy mission, the group kills a young cowherd and a witch doctor before slaughtering an entire village, and the shaman casts his supernatural spell from beyond the grave on the already insane soldiers. The feature serves as a metaphorical example of the political chaos and violence in South Africa. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

South African medical examiner Joe Stewardson investigates a rash of prostitute murders, all with the same gruesome MO. While pursuing this case, Stewardson is pressured by the government to declare that the death of a known black activist, killed while in police custody, was due to heart failure. Sympathetic to the activist's cause, Stewardson refuses to falsify his report. Then he learns that the prostitute killings are the handiwork of other black extremists, who argue that they're justified in venting their wrath on the white establishment by whatever means possible. Unable to determine who's right or wrong anymore, Stewardson pulls out of the controversy-and, simultaneously, out of life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide