The Bang Bang Club (2011)

Bang Bang Club is about as good as dramatic cinema could possible get. This is what cameras were made for. Certainly, we would not want to see the real thing, would we? No, that's why we hire actors, and watch what they do, second hand. The only difference between Bang Bang Club and the standard violent Hollywood trash that so many people enjoy subjecting themselves to, is that the Bang Bang Club is based on a relatively true story. We would think the people would love it! It is just what they want, and people do pay good money for trash art, so then why not real art? Viewers sure can get what they want here. Big Bang Club delivers close and personal cinematic reenactments of graphic, brute violence and bloodshed. Talk about getting your slasher movie kink fetish off! Imagine bullets, banging out of guns at close range, wetly thumping big bloody holes in actor's chests. Puddles of blood! Cruel slashings and human torchings that put Zombie faire to shame, because, all this really happened. We all love cinéma vérité, when it comes to raunchy violence don't we? Kudos to the director and crew for doing a great job of portraying some seriously viscous and direct violence on human beings. Perhaps the thing about this film that made it such a resounding box office flop is that this in-your-face experience has plot too! thus violating the third rule pornography. The fact that this movie brings the dirty, and controversial truth about our world, into our fantasy world, is probably the reason it went no where in the Box Office.

That movie really takes me out of rails whenever watching it. It makes me thinking how controversial the world is and ... When there are so many examples in wild nature for injustice and loosing life in order to gain balance, why is it so hardly difficult for people to accept the social conflicts and death? P.S. The performance of Taylor Kitsch is more than brilliant.. He made me wanting to read the book and take my personal imagination of what the real personality of Kevin Carter has been! Special thanks to the directors - Thank you for making film of that rank, i mean "think & feel", not just "pay & watch".

This is super-duper spoilery, but it's "based on real events," so suck it if you didn't want to know!-- Groupie: I know you! -- Carter: That's funny...my own mother doesn't know me. -- Groupie: You're one of those photographers, who takes the pictures.-- Robin: Maybe you have to be like that to do what you do.Those little exchanges pretty much sum up the movie--it's about rock star photographers and the rocket scientists who sex them up. It's well meaning, but feels very hollow. There are some disturbing scenes which feel so staged, that it's like the offenders are performing Kabuki theater for the photographers rather than committing actual atrocities. In one scene, there are two groups fighting in the streets with a good 100 feet between them, with the four photogs positioned to get comfortable shots of both sides. When snipers begin attacking, few people run, no one acknowledges the fallen, it's not even apparent which side is shooting which.Once they've been christened "The Bang Bang Club" (after rejecting "The Bang Bang Paparazzi"), a Colored guy (yes, still a racial descriptor in SA) asks to join the group, to which Greg reluctantly says yes, lest they be deemed "The White Boy Club." Of course, he is shot and killed within minutes. THIS, of course, pushes Greg over the edge. Greg...the guy who fairly calmly photographed a Black man get stabbed four times with machetes BEFORE suggesting the attackers stop, then continued to photograph the man as he was set aflame and running around until he was finally stabbed to death. Fortunately, throughout these ordeals Greg's editor is willing to ease his pain with her naked body.When two members of the BBC are inevitably shot during one harrowing standoff between the military and some snipers, the immediate and dramatic response of those around them was in stark contrast to their reaction to the felling of just about everyone else, ever. They are swiftly dragged out and taken to the hospital. And of course, the one who dies is also the one given the least attention, although his model girlfriend is given lots of crying scenes afterward.Taylor Kitsch's performance has been given a lot of attention, both because of his commendable transformation into a crazy South African and because of his character's real-life tragic ending. That said, I got a better sense of his drug addiction and how he was affected by his Pulitzer-winning photo from the Time Magazine article on his death than from this movie. They paid enough attention to Carter inviting a nameless groupie/teacher to a party, that I have to assume she's the mother of the child he mentions in his suicide note. Who knows, because this guy just popped in and out of the story like a bipolar ghost.

This story of four photographers working in South Africa during the last days of the Apartheid is a moving and often morally challenging tale. Seeing these very different men maneuver through a blood stained country in a time of devastation and civil unrest sheds light on a period most would rather forget, bringing it to a new audience perhaps too young to remember the significance of it. These were days of change in South Africa, images that were sent out to the world and helped create mounting pressure on the Government to put an end to the injustice that was the Apartheid. These are photographs that changed the world and this film is an interesting insight into the lives of the men who opened the eyes of the Western world to the plight of the South African people.Driven by beautifully created characters, this film is brilliantly acted all round but it is Taylor Kitsch who gives the most poignant performance as Kevin Carter. Kitsch ultimately steals the show with his quiet intensity, bringing life to a tragic man who has seen too much. The growing despair of his character throughout the film is heart wrenching. It is not an enjoyable film to watch at times, the content difficult to stomach knowing that these people lived through these horrors, but it is well worth it. One of the best films I have seen in the past year, hands down.