Stander

I've seen my share of South African films, being a South African myself, and I can tell you with pride and without hesitation that this was one of the best films from my country I've ever seen. I felt the protagonist's confusion and frustration. I cannot remember the last time I've wanted the bad guy to escape more than in this movie.

"ebhp1" commented on the accent, which made it difficult to understand the dialogue. I think it was a functional and very important part of the movie in an attempt to make it REAL. A movie about South Africans with an American accent? No. It's like making a British film French accents... I do have to congratulate the American actors who handled the accent so well. I even wondered if they were South African!

I take my hat off to you. A great movie with great actors.

A thoughtful action film, well written, directed and acted. A potent blend of character study and social history, with a dynamic performance by Thomas Jane in the title role. What at first seems to be a kind of Robin Hood tale turns out to be much more complex and unsettling.

Director/co-writer Bronwen Hughes (can this really be the same person who directed "Harriet the Spy"?) finds just the right tone and pace. The Soweto riot scene is a knockout and sets the stage for Andre Stander's disillusionment. The overall film is reminiscent (in the best sense) of some of the classic Hollywood films of the late 60s, early 70s such as "Butch Cassidy" and "Dog Day Afternoon."

In 1976, in Johannesburg, the efficient anti-racist Homicide/Robbery Police Captain Andre Stander (Thomas Jane) has a nervous breakdown after killing an unarmed man in an apartheid protest. Stander decides to confront and mock the established corrupt system heisting twenty-six banks while working for the police department. He is captured and sentenced to thirty-two years in prison; however, he succeeds to escape with the criminals Lee McCall (Dexter Fletcher) and Allan Heyl (David Patrick O'Hara) and together they form "The Stander Gang" and rob another twenty banks in six months.

"Stander" tells the story of the notorious Afrikaner bank robber and former police captain Andre Stander. The movie works perfectly as an action movie, but if the intention was to give any political connotation to the actions of the anti-hero Stander, it completely fails. Stander is shown as an efficient but unbalanced man in love for his wife performed by the gorgeous Deborah Kara Unger that defies the system, not like a Robin Hood or to protect the black people, but for self-profit only. Thomas Jane has a great performance in the role of this complex character. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Stander – Um Policial Contra o Sistema" ("Stander – A Policeman Against the System")

I Just got back from a screening of This film at the Sundance film festival, and there are some corrections that need to be made from some of the other comments. After the screening the director did a Q&A where when asked was all this true, she said oddly enough "the outrageous stuff was true, and we had to add normal plot fillers to help it dramatically."

Stander never planned his robberies, he was a criminal who was sick of seeing the violence against the unarmed citizens, and tired of the crookedness of police life, that he rebelled against the system, just as a political act, not a need for money.

This film has plenty of great action scenes and alot of great comedy as well as brilliant acting by the whole cast, especially Thomas Jane who shines as Stander.

Outside of the violence and fun, there is a very powerful moral story, one of right and wrong, politics and the lonely life of a criminal. One theme I love was repeated throughout, and that is that the wrong man is always punished, or killed, when we should be looking at our government officials and their corruption, we spend too much time on the little criminals.

Very fascinating, and fun to watch, as well as thought provoking, once again the Q&A would answer all of the problems other posters had with the film, because the stuff they did not like was the actual facts behind the characters lives, just AMAZING!!

After picking up the movie almost solely for the purpose of watching Tom Jane the actual content and brilliance of the story was shocking. Even after I realized it wasn't my normal kind of movie I was compelled to watch, completely caught up in the lives and fates of the characters. Even more compelling due to the fact that it tells a true story there's a sense of real involvement with the people and their story. For people born after the 70's and far away from South Africa this era is something almost make believe but this movie brings it to glorious and heart breaking true life. Great acting, great story, well worth watching.