Tsotsi

            One of the last movies that were viewed in class was, Tsotsi. The film takes place in South Africa and it is about a petty crime gang leader called Tsotsi who goes around doing mischievous things. At first him and his boys walk around their poor town and go to the central station to look for mischief. When Tsotsi, Boston, Aap, and Butcher get into a train they see that there is an elderly man there in which they are plotting to rob. Tsotsi tells the man to be quiet but suddenly Butcher stabs the man quietly, finally killing him and letting him die on the train. Boston becomes sick from what he witnessed and then gets mad and confronts Tsotsi, which then leaves Tsotsi to fight and beat up Boston. He then flees eventually finds a woman in her car, which leaves him to rob her. After he robbed the lady for her car he shoots her and drives away. Little does Tsotsi know that there is a baby in the car, right after he notices he decides to leave the car and take the baby with him. Tsotsi brings the kid back home and tries to take care of him and make sure that the baby is clean and eats. He tries to avoid his friends to be with the baby and take care of it. Although he still continues to have his same street mentality by forcing a local town mother to take care of the baby you see that he starts to be more open with the lady as she nurtures the baby. You also see that he reminisces on his childhood and how cruel his father was to him. He also goes back to where he grew up in a poor part where homeless kids would go to. Tsotsi becomes closer to the kid as it were his. Eventually he decides that he can no longer keep the kid because it was not right. He decides to give it back to the family in where they had already surveliance and cops working with them hoping that the kidnapper would appear. In this case Tsotsi appeared with the baby, and handing him over to the parents. While the cops were already outside they arrested Tsotsi soon after he retrieved the infant.

            The theme of this movie was based on the slums of Africa which shows you the poverty and how people go on with their lives daily regardless of the conditions. In this case Tsotsi wanted to be a father figure to the baby he kidnapped. He never wanted to hurt it but only make sure that he took care of it any way possible. I think the film was well directed but I think it could of ended better.