The Bang Bang Club
Angelika Film Centre, May 3, 2011
Movie #26 for 2011
Greg Marinovich (RYAN PHILLIPE, Stop-Loss, I Know What You Did Last Summer) is the new guy for a Johannesburg newspaper’s combat photography team - the image editor at the paper (and inevitable love interest), Robin (MALIN AKERMAN, HappyThankYouMorePlease, Watchmen) signs him up when he proves himself an even bigger macho risk-taker than the other photographers. Plus he’s got a good eye - one that will eventually win him a Pulitzer Prize.
It’s the early 90s in South Africa - the lead up to their first free elections - and the four photographers of the Bang Bang Club (pictured, including TAYLOR KITSCH, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and TV’s “Friday Night Lights”) go into townships to photograph riots and civil unrest. They also party a lot like the privileged rockstar white boys that they are. The stresses and dangers of combat photography and too many drugs begin to unravel various characters in various ways.
The film, we find out as the credits roll, is based on the memoir writings of the two surviving members and is dedicated to the other two. The credits roll over the photos the group actually took highlighting two things: one, writer/director STEVEN SILVER (a South African documentary film-maker) spent a lot of time and effort recreating those photos; and two, the photos themselves were the most powerful images to come out of the film. While Silver meticulously reconstructs chaotic riot scenes to recapture the essence of the 90's photos, but - and this works as an allegory for the entire film - they don't live up to the originals. Which makes me wonder whether a straight-up documentary wouldn’t have been better.
Although the direction is okay, the writing is less than. The balance of screen-time between characters is odd, resulting in a fractured narrative that illuminates neither the characters nor the political situation that Greg is desperately, then half-heartedly, trying to understand and photograph.
Although it’s not an exceptional film, The Bang Bang Club, does make clear that the journalists, photographers and camera-operators who file from front lines are - in many ways - exceptional people.
