Indemnity

Nothing else to do on a Saturday night because I lost my mojo. I decided to watch this movie. Nice to see my South African brothers in a film. I never seen a South African movie.

My review...

The first 40mins could have been told in 20mins.

A conspiracy thriller it is..a lot of action. Good fight scenes. My question is....

Do the police put handcuffs in the front of a person in South Africa?

For some reason, that visual really bothered me.

Not having already seen the 2021 South African crime thriller "Indemnity", as I stumbled upon it here late in 2022, of course I opted to sit down and watch it. I must admit that I was initially intrigued by the movie's somewhat interesting cover.

As I had never heard about writer and director Travis Taute's 2021 crime thriller "Indemnity", nor seen any trailer, then I didn't know what to expect nor what I was in for here. So writer and director Travis Taute had every opportunity to impress and entertain me.

The storyline in "Indemnity" was interesting, to a point. The movie started out great, but director Travis Taute seemed to use the same formula over and over again for each and every single scene, and it quickly grew tiring to watch actor Jarrid Geduld do the same over and over again. And it made the movie's run time of 124 minutes seem way longer than it was. But already at 124 minutes, the movie seriously needed a well-rounded trim in the editing room.

There was a good amount of action in the movie, as the majority of the movie was essentially one action sequence after another. And all that action came at a cost to the storyline, because the script in "Indemnity" was rather weak and simplistic.

I was thoroughly enjoying about half of the movie, but then it dawned on me that it was essentially just the same formula for each scene used repeatedly, and I must admit that my interest in the movie started to dwindle, and it was getting progressively more and more difficult not to drift off.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, and I will say that they had put together a good ensemble of talented actors and actresses. Jarrid Geduld, playing Theo, was a good leading actor and seemed suitable for action thrillers.

Visually then "Indemnity" is good. The action sequences are nicely choreographed and executed on the screen. And since the movie is almost a non-stop barrage of action sequences, then you're in for quite a ride.

A shame that the movie didn't play out better than it did, and also that its prolonged run time was killing it, because "Indemnity" could have been a much better movie. Sure, it was watchable for what it was, but this is hardly a movie that warrants more than a single viewing.

My rating of "Indemnity" lands on a five out of ten stars.

"Indemnity" film is somewhat a fine film. The plot is good, the acting, the directing and the original score are also good too. It's kind of interesting. And thriller thing actually worked. It indeed made me thrilled. When I was watching it, my feet got cold and excited to see what happened next and how it was going to end. So, I'd say it's kind of a good film.

That being said, I still feel like it's a bit slow and kind of deliberately stretching the plot making it a bit longer than it should be. And also, I don't quite like the ending. It's like it's cut off in the middle. The director should have concluded by showing some more happy scenes. (This is just my personal opinion. As the one who likes to see happy ending, I really want it to end with happy things.)

About the rating, initially, I was going to give 7 stars until I saw some things that I don't want to see in any films. So, my final rating landed on 5 stars.

Anyway, even though it has some things I don't like, I kind of enjoyed it. So, I'd say it's worth to watch it.

An actual South African masterpiece. The film kept us thoroughly entertained throughout and had some unexpected twists that had us on the edge of our seats! Cape Town was beautifully and authentically showcased. Overall, a very tight movie and touches on a number of interesting subjects. Would recommend!

It just dragged on and on, with overdone melodramatics and a sappy score. Newb writer, producer and director Travis Taute still did a fairly decent job overall, but the overly long scenes needed editing down so the bloated 124 min runtime be at the most 90 mins. The action was ok, and the story although cliched, routine and predictable, still had some merits. Casting and performances were decent for the most part, with the lead Jarrid Geduld being the least convincing, perhaps due to Taute's inexperience in directing his cast effectively. It's a watchable South-African entry into the action film genre, as long as you have patience.