Stander

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.

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."

This is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time, it really is a well scripted, acted and directed film. Thomas Jane is excellent in the title role of Andre Stander, a highly decorated Johannesburg detective who, after becoming despondent with his life in the oppressive South African police force, embarks on an audacious series of bank robberies. David O'Hara and Dexter Fletcher were also well cast as Stander's accomplices in this most enjoyable of crime capers.

The writing, script and dialogue were well crafted, whilst watching this film you might feel that Bima Stagg has a great imagination to spin such an unbelievable tale, incredibly though the film is a true story. Although the film is the tale of one mans rebellion against the system, it maintains an air of humour. Far from trivialising the story this reinforces the sheer audacity of the crime spree that ensues. I would highly recommend this film.

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!!

I just watched this movie yesterday. I guess it just got released, but I couldn't find it. Luckily someone put it online.

Anyway, this movie was incredible. Since watching the movie, I did some research, and this move was completely based on actual events and facts. Only robbing the same bank twice in one day was fictional.

Tom Jane was great in the role as Andre Stander, and was excellent in his confidence within the character. its too bad this film wasn't more popular in North America

I am going to have to buy the DVD. Hopefully it will have some interesting extras