The slum tourism of Gavin Hood’s Oscar-nominated redemption song has inevitably inspired comparisons with Fernando Meirelles’ City Of God, but while Tsotsi’s Soweto-bred contingent of hoods could certainly hold their own against Sao Paulo’s finest, there’s a weepy, Academy-friendly softness working through this fine South African drama.
The title, meaning hoodlum, is the sole handle of the film’s seemingly nerveless young protagonist (first-time actor, Chweneyagae), the de facto leader of a ruthless shanty town gang. A charged opening sequence does everything to take you off his side, as the brood coldly ambush and stick a commuter for drinking money before Tsotsi moves on to a bloody botched car-jacking.
When he finds that in taking the vehicle he has accidentally kidnapped the baby of an affluent couple, his rehabilitation begins. But very slowly.
His initial attempts to care for the poor creature are almost more horrific than his psychopathic capacity for violence. Leaving the child in a bag with a tin of condensed milk and an army of ants for company makes for shocking spectacle and, remarkable as it sounds, an even less humorous take on childcare than that offered by Three Men And A Baby or Jersey Girl.
As Tsotsi bonds with his kidnapped charge, the floodgates open. Fragments and flashbacks soon illustrate that this is a monster made, not born, a kid brutalised by the streets, orphaned by AIDS and condemned by circumstance.
For all the social psychology, Hood’s film just about avoids descending into mawkishness. Slums have rarely looked less appealing than they do here and there’s nothing too cuddly about the baby’s mother, wheelchair bound since her run in with Tsotsi, yearning for the safe return of her child.
The results are more linear, less dazzling than Meirelles’ film, but being on the run with a surprisingly complex thug proves thrilling enough.