Hijack Stories

What an insult to the SA film industry! I have seen better SA films. The comments I read about Hijack Stories,by saying it is worthy of a ten out of ten is quite scary. A movie's rating should not depend on.., "OH, A MOVIE FROM A DEVELOPING COUNTRY. LETS BOOST THEIR INDUSTRY BY SAYING NICE THINGS ABOUT THEIR WORK, EVEN THOUGH IT IS BAD." We have the expertise to make good movies. Don't judge the film industry on what people say how great they think Hijack Stories is. We can tell great stories such as Cry the beloved Country and Shaka Zulu. Cry the beloved Country I'll give 9 out of 10. Great directing by Darryl, great acting by two great elderly actors, irrespective from where they are. Hijack Stories.., I'll give 1 out of 10. It could only be people involved in the project who would give it high scores. I would've done the same if it was my movie.

Set in South Africa, a young black guy tries to land a part in a 'gangsta' movie. But with no knowledge of street life, he's told to find out what that life is really like or he won't get the part. He manages to work his way into a gang led by an old friend of his from school and his chances of appearing in the film decline as he commits crimes to be accepted. But for the gang's leader, the burgeoning disaster of his new friend's life suggests a golden opportunity to do something better with his own.

While that may sound relatively interesting, it's anything but. The first half of it is incredibly meandering and tedious, while the "hijacking" only takes place towards the end with some very poorly executed low speed car chases. In those "chases", only two police cars are used, both of which are early 90's Nissan Sunny's. Not only would these be rather cheap to pick up (and I find it rather hard to believe they'd be using such mundane old cars in South Africa in the year 2000), but as far as I can remember, there's only 2 involved and none of them get a scratch once. The car chases are very badly shot, with distant and badly timed camera angles and minimal traffic on the roads, and they're all over in around 2 minutes at maximum as you're supposed to believe that a very small kid is actually a highly skilled driver who can easily evade the police despite the driving being pedestrian and utterly unexciting. This now leads me onto the characters and the acting, which are equally bad. The aforementioned kid who drives the car, looks about 13 years old and supposedly is extremely skilled at losing the incredibly inept police. Everybody else is equally unconvincing, so much that they even look bored at times themselves.

At the closing scene of the movie, our main character ("Sox Moraka") is asked by the gang leader to steal a car from a car park. While having trouble opening it, the Police arrive and ask him what he's doing and he replies by telling him it's their car. After a brief argument they try to arrest him and he then holds the Police at gunpoint and jumps back in their car. After he's in, the Police return fire and in turn he gets wounded. After another pathetic chase sequence, they decide to abandon the car and set it alight to destroy any evidence. What follows here is one of the most downright laughable and hideously awful special effects I've ever seen. When the car "explodes", superimposed flames suddenly appear from every window with awful sound effects that aren't even in time. It's so badly done and so phony looking that it's hard to even put it into words, and really needs to be seen to be believed. If you watch it in slow motion it looks even funnier. I've seen better effects than this in murder reconstruction documentaries. The car is a Volkswagen Golf MK2 GTi. Something that wouldn't be worth a huge amount at all, and they seriously couldn't afford to destroy it with a real explosion? I'd love to know how large the budget for this movie was. It feels so cheap that I'm surprised it made it outside of South Africa, and even more surprised it made it to a DVD release.

I know it's not a big budget Hollywood production. I know it's meant to depict gangs in impoverished townships of South Africa who steal cars from the middle class in and sell the parts on the black market, but with the laughable effects, poorly executed car chases, awful acting and ludicrous characters, any sense of reality is completely lost.

Overall, I most certainly do NOT advise you to watch this. If you want to have a laugh and see one of the most poorly done, low budget messes of amovie ever created, then I'd recommend it for that, and only that.

It is a wretched, poorly made, poorly edited, poorly paced and tedious piece of low budget drivel that fails on all counts. I've seen many South African movies, including lots of cheap NuImage/Nu-World action pictures, and despite their cheesiness, they're far better than this on all counts.

Far from Hollywood eye candy, this movie has a taste of South African authenticity. No high budget action, no pretenses, just the minimum needed to support the plot that takes the audience on a journey across various aspects of contemporary South African society, most often in a humorous way. Critics about car chases and special effects are completely missing the point of that movie. It mostly revolves about the culture shock of an educated black taking a plunge into Soweto gangster culture. I found the characters quite attaching and I felt refreshed after viewing this exotic piece. I recommend it if you are looking for a simple and out of the ordinary movie.

I have a passion for gangsta films and this was one of the more different ones, nevertheless it was very original. I enjoyed the film and have watched it many times, and still enjoy it now. It's more narration of the story than just every part being acted out. One of its best points is that it is South African and reflects their gang culture. Much of the film is violent and involves a lot of swearing but it adds to this image of being very ''street''.

Good Points:

Good ending Insight into South African gang culture Well narrated Has a documentary-movie vibe

Bad points:

The ''actor'' trying to gain the role of Bra Sox = poor performance Can drag a bit Not a movie for people that are not interested in cultural/gangsta movies

We have seen all the Hollywood movies. One thing a movie tries to drive home is making it look realistic and engaging, this is one thing this movie is filled with when you are watching it its like you are involved with the people right there its so realistic. Whats been done here is wot many movie directors have failed to do with millions of dollars and this movie is so engaging only made with a limited budget its a must see. Its one of those movies that when you are watching it you forget that you are watching a movie.The storyline is of a student who wants to become a movie star but realised he didn't have the x factor, he joins up with a real life gang who hijack cars and tries to get some hijacking spirit injected in him only to get more than he bargained for when he realises that these guys were really serious and really shot people he finds himself trapped with these jackkers