Five Fingers for Marseilles

This glossy South African feature exhibits stunning cinematography and locations. The concept as well is ingenious, and most of the performances appropriately portrayed. The idea f a western style movie with all the trimmings, but set in South Africa was most interesting.

The dialogue I felt did not quite support the standard of the rest of the production value and the script lagged at times. Possibly the performances of this talented cast could have been more riveting if the dialogue was tighter. However generally the story was good enough to retain interest to the conclusion, which seems to be the general concensus of viewer reviews.

All in all an enjoyable feature, with a powerful portrayal of the protagonist Tau who portrayed the character authentically, and one a viewer would root for. That was portrayed with the appropriate menace, an actor who similarly excelled in the SA feature Vaya.

Definitely one to watch, particularly if you are a fan of Westerns with a difference, and a director to keep your eye on in the future.

Amazing little film, but unfortunately suffering of a weak directing and acting too. But the script is OK, good enough to try the watch. Thanks to netflix to have distributed it several years ago. But I am sure most world wide audiences have never heard of this film. However, I think it is a bit too long, it is not a Sergio Leone's film either. Maybe too ambitious for this film destined to the only South Africa territory. But maybe I am wrong.... And for those who may be misunderstand, Marseille here is in South Africa, and not in France. That's important to point it out. Good characters study, that's the main strength of this film.

Rushing toward the police car that has crashed in nearby brush, Tau races to rescue Lerato from the back of the police vehicle. As he nears the car, a white policeman slowly gets out of the car and is holding Lerato who is being held by gunpoint. This intense scene is just a glimpse of the suspenseful western, Five Fingers for Mareilles, which has proven to be a revolutionary piece of South African cinematography directed by the talented Michael Matthews. Matthews has decided to stay true to the South African culture, picking the native language as the movie's main dialogue and hiring a crop of new South African actors who are remarkable. Vuyo Dabula, who plays the Tau, the lion on Mareilles impressed me with an engaging performance that immersed me into his adventure of saving his hometown from the clutches of the feared Sepoko and his gang. The movie takes a twist on the bildungs roman genre, giving the audience a glimpse into South African society through the growth of the five fingers, the childhood clique Tau was a part of before an unfortunate event caused his life to spiral. The cinematography is stunning, prioritizing wide shots and muted colors to represent the open landscape of rural South Africa. It takes the classic spaghetti western genre and makes the movie its own, being modern through the use of parallels and breaking down racial walls with featuring a mostly all black cast that was phenomenal. I will be waiting for more work to feature Dabula as he gives an emotional performance, making an impact on me throughout his performance in the film.

This was a good movie. I can say I was highly impressed. The movie looked amazing first off. The camera work was amazing. Based off westerns, the movie is slow and dramatic but I loved the way the story and drama builds. I was always kept interested. The characters are interesting and the relationships between them are well crafted.

The main actor is very cool in this movie and is a great protagonist. He plays the badass hero role perfectly. The villain is very creepy and they did a good job of making him a menacing and evil character. Most of the side characters are also interesting and have their own agendas and issues.

I liked the R rating of this movie as they did not hold back in the scenes of violence. This allowed them to create some really intense scenes that really heightened the drama.

I loved the movie up until the third act. I feel like the third act becomes a bit slow and tedious as it builds to the final act climax which is a confusing gun battle that could have been crafted a bit better in my opinion. The finale left a sick feeling in my stomach as the directors decided to express a strong philosophy through this story which makes the story feel senseless but besides the ending I feel like this was a very well crafted and entertaining film with some great acting and cinematography.

NB: If you're Sotho, the accent and bad vocabulary will put you off. I'm glad I was told this before watching, so I went in prepared and told myself to ignore this.

Viewing quality - The scenery is absolutely breathtaking and the cameraman wasn't stingy at all. During scenes, the panning is very clean. The night shots aren't so great for me though. They were a little restrictive with the lighting. The colour scheme shows that the town has warm weather, however, I wish the night lighting would resemble shots like these[goo.gl/Njhfg7]. The night scenes should have been nice, crisp, night shots, but with a warm feel instead of the cold blue like the image on that link. I've noticed that a lot of South African films are a little behind when it comes to lighting.

Storyline - I will not be giving away much, but it's about a boy from a small oppressed town, who had to run away from his neighbourhood after doing something really bad and returned home as an adult only to find that the oppression hasn't changed - It is the oppressors who have changed. I'll refrain from adding to this to avoid giving spoilers.

Quality of play - Apart from the accent, the acting and film quality was perfect. There are quite a few mysteries that make you feel like it would be a good idea to watch the movie again, but not at the cinema. It doesn't feel like a rush.

Movie conclusion (my version) - You live by the gun, you die by the gun - Hence the constant and explicit 'voilence' references throughout the movie. The scene about the pastor at the very end sealed it for me. If you haven't watched you'll have to watch to understand.

Sigh.. Okay about the Sesotho - I think Michael Matthews disregarded the fact that a bad accent can affect a movie negatively. I'm not sure if the target market is international, but South Africans, including non-Sotho speaking South Africans could hear that the accent was very off. This was with almost all the actors, including the main actors. It seems like the line-up was more important though. After all, seeing who is starring is has a lot of people interested in the movie. If only the actors spoke proper Sesotho.