MOVIE REVIEW: iNumber Number
Randburg reader Nomusa Nkabinde reviews new South African action film, iNumber Number on behalf of the Randburg Sun and Ster-Kinekor cinemas.
GENRE: Action Crime
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour 36 minutes
STARRING: S’dumo Mtshali (Inside Story), Presley Chweneyagae (Tsotsi), Israel Makoe (The Bang Bang Club), Owen Sejake (Tsotsi), Carlo Radebe (How to Steal 2 Million), Percy Matsemela (Tsotsi)
DIRECTED BY: Donovan Marsh (Spud 2: The Madness Continues)
RATING: 7/10
Currently screening at Ster-Kinekor theatres.
PLOT: Chilli (S’dumo Mtshali) is an ambitious, honest policeman. He is undercover on a job he has been working on for two years. He and his partner Shoes (Presley Chweneyagae) decide to risk their lives for the arrest of the lifetime and a R2 million reward. However, their superiors declare their arrest null-and-void for various shady reasons, and the cops are cheated out of the reward money. This leads Chilli to look for a way to reward himself for all the years he has served his country unrewarded, which results in dire consequences.
THE GOOD: The casting is exceptional, with both relatively new and seasoned actors delivering stellar performances. Israel Makoe brings to the movie just the right amount of ‘cool’ that every gangster character should have while S’dumo Mtshali offers up the bravado and arrogance of a ‘super-cop’ perfectly. There are very impressive action sequences as well as some comedic relief. Director Donovan Marsh stretched himself with his visual style and some shots leave the viewer in awe; the risks he took pay off. The movie is current in the content it explores; covering heavy social issues that plague the everyday South African cop and citizen.
THE BAD: There are some good ground-breaking almost ‘video-game’ visuals that are introduced earlier in the film, but are never continued or fully explored, and some hand-held running shots and zooms that the film could have done without. As with most action movies the story was not properly fleshed out, meaning some plot points were unresolved and the ending felt a bit rushed.
VERDICT: iNumber Number is a definite must-see. One can forgive the thin story line because the performances are so brilliant and the director went all out to make this movie action-filled, exciting, suspenseful and dramatic at every turn. This is one movie one cannot afford to miss.
Thanks to Ster-Kinekor for making the review possible.
