Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema

The Dark Continent revealed to me a previously unexpected face of African cinema. This sweeping portrait of a would-be mobster could be renamed “African Gangster” at the cost of greater simplification. However, director Ralph Ziman is younger than Ridley Scott (by almost thirty years) and thus has much greater nihilistic tendencies. Evil whites, mainly cops, stand against the main protagonist, who positions himself somewhere between Che Guevara and Robin Hood, thus making it difficult to understand his unclear motivations. The connection to blaxploitation doesn’t end there – violence is the most effective way of preventing injustice. On the one hand, people are killed in large numbers and absolutely cold-bloodedly; on the other hand, the film takes the liberty of striking an impassioned chord following the murder of an “innocent” junkie. The lead actor’s charisma places Lucky Kunene at the level of a national hero whose noble yet illegal activities are not analysed in greater depth. Nor is the psychology of the supporting characters, who – with a few exceptions – are very poorly cast. All of this contributes to the variedness of the resulting film, which may not be entirely clear in where it is going and sometimes “loses the plot”, so to speak, but it also manages to compensate for most of its shortcomings with outrageously cool action scenes. 75% (04/21/2013)

Similar to City of God, but not nearly as good, this is still an above average film from an unusual and rugged setting that has a lot to offer. I enjoyed watching the story of how a young kid grows up to be a full-fledged gangster and a feared man of his neighborhood. It's entertaining enough, decently gritty in places, so yeah these movies are starting to get me. 80% (10/04/2017)