This is How Movies Should Be Made

Strong and Moving!

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

The opening scene flashes between black and white and colour. Ice Cube is studying in America and has returned to South Africa at the end of apartheid. No trace of an African accent. You know this is going to be unrealistic when they refer to the USA as a cosy democracy.Here's a summary. Some of the scenery is spectacular. Camera-work is functional. Most of the acting is dire and the dialogue cringeworthy.Liz Hurley is gorgeous as always, and posh English as always. She does have the habit of answering the door to strangers while dressed in scanty underwear. I would have thought that unusual, even for a professional stripper.After Ice is carjacked he doesn't call the police. he returns to his hotel. Liz Hurley gets in touch. She's also had some problems 'Did you call the police?' asks Ice.It now turns out that Liz is Ice's brother's girlfriend as well as neighbour. But brother Stephen has gone missing. Liz now gets Ice to get her drugs. The dealer is suspicious. Meanwhile who should knock at the door? It's Stephen, but he doesn't seem pleased to see his brother.Now they head off back to Ice's hotel. I'm getting bored now, like Ice sounds when he makes those phone calls back home. The score is starting to get annoying too.Then we wind our way to the finale – predictable and dull.

I watched this on some lame cable channel that edited out certainthings, and eliminated swearing ("bulldirt?"). The only reason Iwatched this was the Elizabeth Hurley credit in the beginning. Shewasn't nearly naked enough. It's admirable that the producer'stried to make a movie with a message, but the social commentarywas undeveloped, and not very moving. I just wanted to seeElizabeth Hurley after the first 3 minutes, and that's all I had to lookforward to, once it became apparent that this movie SUCKED! Thescreenplay, and direction were laughable, and it seemed that thewriter of this thing had no idea how people speak in South Africa.The ending showdown scene has been done to death, and wasas cliche as the rest of the film.

When South African native Vusi returns from 15 years in America he finds himself a stranger in his own home. He has come to bury his father but is asked by his mother to find his youngest brother who has gone missing in Johannesburg. Checking out an address Vusi meets one of his brothers friends Karin, and finds that his brother has stolen money from a drug dealer - creating more problems for Vusi as Muki is willing to kill to get his money back.This starts with flashbacks to South Africa during the early 80's, where we find Ice Cube –ys, you heard me – was one of the student leaders of the uprising for change. Years later he returns, bringing with him a heavy monologue that lectures us about drugs being the new trap for the black man and how he must help the kids etc. The story itself never really gets interesting – the only interest is the possibility to learn about life in S. Africa, however even that is a bit stereotyped.The monologue makes the film feel even heavier than it is, but when the film eventually settles in the guns n' gangstas ending that it promises it appears to have confused itself. The film lectures about making the right choice as men, about the evils of drugs – in fact Vusi makes it his mission in USA and S. Africa to help kids stay in education etc. However after all that lecturing, a happy ending only comes with murder, violence and guns – is that the films message? That drugs are bad and are a global trap for the black man and the only way to stop them is to leave education programmes and murder anyone involved in the deals? I wouldn't have seen it this way if it had just set itself out as another thriller with an African twist, but because it is message heavy until it gets guns, I feel that it wanted to have it both ways when it can't.Ice Cube is watchable, even when he is in rubbish films, here he is OK but is really pushing the laid-back yank thing too much. His voice over is so preachy and monotonous that at times I thought he was falling asleep in the studio. Hurley looks sexy (despite working in a strip cub where no-one gets naked!) but her accent wanders all over the place – from English to African and back again. Ving Rhames plays a sort of African Marcellus Wallace – the first dialogue scene he has all we see is the back of his head……very Pulp Fiction. His accent is good but his character is nothing new.Overall this `action' movie is dull – the interesting cast make it worth one watch but no more than that. The mix of `stay in school kids' and `just say no' is too heavy and labourious, but is made even more pointless by the film's conclusion that the best way to deal with criminals destroying an area is to get guns and kill them!

A movie set in South Africa, that started off, promising much, but ended with you feeling maybe you should get more for your money. The acting was not bad, but the plot was a bit thin, and sometimes a little unrealistic. Ice Cube plays an American gone to South Africa after the death of his father, where his family informs him about his brother who has gone missing. Here he meets up with his brother's girlfriend played by Liz Hurley, who is heavily into heroin. They then set about finding his brother, which includes Shooting people, blowing things up, blah, blah, blah. After a while it all gets a bit predictable.