Unlike most predecessors that rely on racially motivated, Apartheid-inspired stories, Tsotsi abandons the race card and deals with current issues that are not only in South Africa, but applicable anywhere else on earth. It's themes make it understandable and therefore approachabl...( read more)e. Has been compared time and time again to City Of God, but where that film struck a more realistic chord, Tsotsi is a bit more sentimental yet very much worth seeing.

A hard hitting film with an intense amount of violent behaviour and fear followed by (in complete contrast) an instinctive guide for love and survival.

The story itself isn?t by any means too complicated, but the emotions run from such extremes it?ll have you thinking with you...( read more)r heart and not your head.

This is certainly the type of film that stays with you for days after watching it. The music throughout is very fitting to the changing mood of the film. The special features show 3 different endings, if this interests you.

The 2005 Academy Award Winner for "Best Foreign Language Film" is, in many ways, not unlike the winner for "Best Picture". Like "Crash", "Tsotsi" is largely a well-constructed and moving film. "Tsotsi", however, also shares the same sense of manipulation and a lack of subtlety. I...( read more)t's a much better film than "Crash", but certainly not as worthy as a few other noteworthy foreign films from that year - primarily Fatih Akin's "Head-On". However, when a film transforms a monster to a sympathetic character within the span of two hours and it's intentions are completely pure and hopeful, it's hard not to invest in it.

"Tsotsi" was adapted from a novel by Athol Fugard written in 1960. Interestingly enough, screenwriter/director Gavin Hood ignored all the racial issues that were prominent in Fugard's novel and set the film in modern day post-Apartheid South Africa. The film follows a young man known as Tsotsi (Presley Chwenayagae), "tsotsi" simply being the slang word for thug. At the beginning of the film, Tsotsi and his gang kill a man on a bus for his wallet. It's very chilling that they do this while the bus is still crowded shoulder-to-shoulder, having to hoist him up until the passengers leave to avoid suspicion. The gang runs off, and when Tsotsi is questioned by one of his men, Boston (Mothusi Magano), Tsotsi makes him pay for it.

Tsotsi then goes on to steal a woman's car. She had gone to the intercom to get her husband to open the gate, when Tsotsi approached from behind and shot her. On the drive home, he hears the cry of a baby in the backseat - he's got a passenger. Tsotsi, at this point in the film, has been established as Satan incarnate, but even he is not capable of leaving a baby in a car to rot.

Tsotsi takes the child to his shack and does what he can to take care of him. Eventually, in an act of desperation, he holds a neighbor woman at gunpoint so that she'll breastfeed the child. She is Miriam (Terry Pheto), and the two form a sort of friendship. To the film's credit, we never get the sense that she completely "likes" Tsotsi in the beginning. She's disgusted with him and only wants to do what she can do help the child.

What makes the film work so well is the performance from Presley Chwenayagae. He's very refined and never completely explodes emotionally until it's necessary. While I didn't completely buy the entirety of the film, i'll admit to having chills at the climax due largely to Presley's performance. He's remarkably good, as is the rest of the cast.

"Tsotsi" has some wonderful scenes (Tsotsi's encounter with a wheelchair-bound homeless man), and some that simply don't work (familiar flashbacks about an abusive father) - but it's the transformation that makes the film special and worthwhile. It's not a great movie, and certainly not a subtle one, but it's largely effective. A mild recommendation.

I don't feel qualified to properly review this, because I haven't educated myself enough about the context. But I'm a sucker for stuff about slums and gangsters - stuff that shows the humanity in the places many least expect it. So yeah, I dug it.

great story. Performances were great. The movie never apologizes for Tsotsi ("Thug"), they dont make you like him, or root for him, they just present the story, and show how someone seemingly too far gone, can still redeem himself.