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Studio: E1 Entertainment
Year: 2010
Cast: Ryan Phillippe, Malin Akerman, Taylor Kitsch, Frank Rautenbach, Neels Van Jaarsveld
Director: Steven Silver
Release Date: August 16, 2011
Rating: R for (strong brutal violence, disturbing images, pervasive language, some drug use, and sexual content)
Run Time: 01h:47m:34s
Genre(s): drama, action
“It’s just a label…almost a joke really.” - Kevin Carter (Taylor Kitsch)
This certainly isn't the fist apartheid drama we've ever seen, but an interesting cast and decent film festival pedigree ramps up the optimism quite a bit.
Movie Grade: C+
DVD Grade: B+
It’s strange to me when the ups and downs of an actor’s career path basically emulate their personal
life, although I’m not sure I should be so surprised when such a thing happens. Still, movie stars carry this air of
invincibility around them, in that we tend to think their stardom can never be affected by anything other than poor
box office receipts. A near perfect example of this is Ryan Phillippe, who became a star in his early twenties thanks
to starring roles in the high-profile films I Know What You Did Last Summer, 54, and Cruel Intentions. Things
seemed to change right around the time he married Reese Witherspoon, whom he’d met while filming Cruel
Intentions. The strange thing about Phillippe is that the quality of his roles started to diminish even before he and
Witherspoon tied the knot, as his career took an instant backseat to hers, which took off thanks to the huge success
of Legally Blonde. Now, it seems Phillippe is staging a mini-comeback, taking supporting roles in MacGruber and
The Lincoln Lawyer to name a few. 2010’s The Bang Bang Club sees Phillippe return to more of a starring role,
but the film never received a wide theatrical release, and has gone virtually unheard of until this, Entertainment
One’s Blu-ray release. We’ll see if this fine release is the spark that he needs to get back on the Hollywood map.
Greg Marinovich (Phillippe), Kevin Carter (Taylor Kitsch), Ken Oosterbroek (Frank Rautenbach), and João Silva
(Neels Van Jaarsveld) are involved in the epitome of a dangerous career. They comprise a group of war
photographers in post-apartheid South Africa that call themselves The Bang Bang Club, and will stop at nothing to
outdo each other in capturing the most graphic footage possible. Marinovich is new to the group, and it isn’t long
after his induction that he’s having an affair with a beautiful editor named Robin Comely (Malin Akerman). With
the group’s camaraderie often questioned in the face of danger and strenuous relationships, it’s a constant struggle
to keep The Bang Bang Club together and firing on all cylinders.
By no means the quintessential film about war photographers (see James Woods in Oliver Stone’s Salvador for
that), The Bang Bang Club is still an hour and a half of solid, and at times, gruesome cinema. This gruesomeness is
the most engaging part of the film, as the actors get extremely close to numerous cold-blooded murders, but it’s not
just the blood and gore that holds our attention. It’s the emotional and moral struggle that we go through with the
characters during these murders. Should they intervene and risk their chance at an incredible photo, let alone their
lives, or should they simply go with the flow of this deplorable time in South Africa’s history? The film might have
worked a bit more if this question and similar dynamics had been delved into more deeply, but there’s enough
approached here to keep things interesting. The sequences that don’t involve this dangerous photography nearly
brings the film to a halt though, and it’s likely this imbalance that has kept it from a wider audience.
Phillippe gives a solid performance as the newest addition to this group of photographers, but he often struggles with
his European accent. He does all he can to keep it from slipping throughout the film, but far too often do we hear
the American Ryan Phillippe that we know and love and not the South African Greg Marinovich as intended. I
didn’t expect to focus this much on horrendous accents, but Malin Akerman barely fares better than Phillippe in
that department. They’re both incredibly distracting, but, fortunately, Kitsch does a much better job with his, often
saving his colleagues from utterly disastrous sequences. The rest of the cast goes generally unnoticed, and with
Phillippe’s and Ackerman’s issues, their ambiguity is a plus.
Entertainment One’s Blu-ray disc is a nice release, especially when it comes to the audio and video presentations.
The video shows up as a 1080p transfer in 2.35:1, and it sports exquisite image clarity and an impressive, natural
color scheme. Much of the film is shot in a way to give it a documentary feel, but things never falter, despite some
often shaky camera techniques. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is also well-done, making liberal use of the
surround channels, and nice directional effects to capture even the most subtle of movements. Dialogue is always
crisp and easy to understand, as its perfectly blended into the overall mix. A few nice extras are available, as well,
including a commentary track with writer/director Steven Silver. He offers quite a bit of insight into the filming of
some grotesque scenes, but the 45-minute making of piece that’s also here, does an even better job. There’s also a
brief slideshow, some deleted scenes, and interviews with the cast and crew that were conducted by a child who
played a small part in the film.
Posted by: Chuck Aliaga - January 13, 2012, 4:59 pm - DVD Review
Keywords: apartheid, photographers, bloody struggle
