FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
STANDER
Following in his father’s footsteps, Andre Stander, the youngest police
captain in Johannesburg, helps crush a student uprising, killing
unarmed civilians. Guilt ridden, Stander requests removal from riot
patrol, jeopardizing his career. Seeing how the police are occupied
crushing protests, Stander realizes, "White men can get away with
anything." And he does – robbing banks. After his first impulsive
hold-up, he nonchalantly gives the loot to an astonished black
newspaper boy. A master of disguise, he continues his crime spree,
sometimes robbing the same bank on the same day, to the humiliation of
the police. This fast-paced film, based on real events, follows Stander
into prison, where he forms a resourceful gang of thieves, and then to
his life on the lam.
Although another look on Apartheid from a white perspective,
Stander is a crime drama rather than a political expose. It owes
an obvious debt to Bonnie and Clyde in its portrayal of Stander as a
rebel against a corrupt state (as well as a slow-motion shoot-out.)
Fortunately, Stander and his gang are not patronizingly portrayed as
heroes. However empathetic they may be (given the enforcement of
Apartheid), Stander and his cohorts become increasingly repugnant as
their actions become more violent. And Stander’s appealing humor
comes not so much from the charm Stander exudes (and actor Jane has
plenty), but from the story itself. Early in his criminal career,
Captain Stander investigates a robbery he had committed only a few
hours earlier. He asks a bewildered teller, what the suspect looked
like. Softly and haltingly, she answers, "You," much to the merriment
of Stander's unsuspecting fellow officers.
Director Browen Hughes maintains tension, moving from crime to crime.
But as the film speeds along, the portrayal of Stander becomes
soulless. His motivations are drowned out by the screeching gateways,
and the complexity of his relationships with his estranged father and ex-wife
is only hinted. Filmed in earth tones, the inspired
production design may bring back memories of TV’s Starsky & Hutch. Tom
Jane does bear a strong resemblance to actor David Soul (as noted in
the film). But like a TV show, Stander is episodic in nature, and Stander's
murky motivations are left unexplored. Kent Turner
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