''The Bang Bang Club'' is a 2010 Canadian-South African

biographical A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curric ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

written and directed by Steven Silver and stars

Ryan Phillippe Matthew Ryan Phillippe ( ; born September 10, 1974) is an American actor. After appearing as Billy Douglas (One Life to Live), Billy Douglas on the soap opera ''One Life to Live'' (1992–1993) and making his feature film debut in ''Crimson Tide ...

Greg Marinovich Greg Marinovich (born Gregory Sebastian Marinovich, 8 December 1962) is Pulitzer-awardedSouth African photojournalist, filmmaker, photo editor, and member of the Bang-Bang Club. He co-authored the book '' The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hi ...

Malin Åkerman Malin Maria Åkerman (born 12 May 1978), often anglicised to Malin Akerman, is a Swedish actress. She first appeared in smaller parts in both Canadian and American productions, including '' The Utopian Society'' (2003) and '' Harold & Kumar Go ...

as Robin Comley,

Taylor Kitsch Taylor Kitsch (born April 8, 1981) is a Canadian actor. He is known for portraying Tim Riggins in the NBC television series '' Friday Night Lights'' (2006–2011). He has also worked in films such as '' X-Men Origins: Wolverine'' (2009), ''Bat ...

Kevin Carter Kevin Carter (13 September 1960 – 27 July 1994) was a South African photojournalism, photojournalist and member of the Bang-Bang Club. He was the recipient in 1994 of a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography, Pulitzer Prize for the vulture a ...

, Frank Rautenbach as

Ken Oosterbroek Ken Oosterbroek (14 February 1962 – 18 April 1994) was a South African photojournalist and member of the Bang-Bang Club. He worked for '' The Star'' in Johannesburg, which was South Africa's biggest daily broadsheet. He won numerous photograp ...

and Neels Van Jaarsveld as João Silva. They portray the lives of four

photojournalists Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...

active within the

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

s of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

during the

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

period, particularly between 1990 and 1994, from when

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...

was released from prison to the 1994 elections. It is a

film adaptation A film adaptation transfers the details or story of an existing source text, such as a novel, into a feature film. This transfer can involve adapting most details of the source text closely, including characters or plot points, or the original sou ...

of the book '' The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War'' co-written by Greg Marinovich and João Silva who were part of the group of four photographers known as the

Bang-Bang Club The Bang-Bang Club was a group of four conflict photographers, Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbroek, and João Silva, active within the townships of South Africa between 1990 and 1994 during the transition from the apartheid system t ...

, the other two members being Kevin Carter and Ken Oosterbroek.

Plot

The film tells the story of four young men and the extremes they went to in order to capture their pictures in the days prior to the downfall of

in South Africa.

Cast

;The Bang-Bang Club members *

as Robin Comley *

* Frank Rautenbach as

* Neels Van Jaarsveld as João Silva ;Other roles * Patrick Lyster as

James Nachtwey James Nachtwey (born March 14, 1948) is an American photojournalist and war photographer. He has been awarded the Overseas Press Club's Robert Capa Gold Medal five times and two World Press Photo awards. In 2003, Nachtwey was injured in a gren ...

* Russel Savadier as Ronald Graham * Alf Kumalo as himself

Distribution

The film had its world premiere at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

(TIFF). Entertainment One has distribution rights for Canada.

Tribeca Film The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Enterprises. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. The festival ...

acquired American distribution rights. It was released theatrically in the United States on 22 April 2011. According to The Numbers, the film was only shown in nine theatres in the US where it earned $124,791.

Reception

''The Bang Bang Club'' received mixed reviews. , it holds a 49% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

based on 49 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. Judith Matloff, a veteran foreign correspondent and contributing editor at ''

Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its original purpose was "to assess the performance ...

'' said that the film was "the latest Hollywood production to get the role of the conflict correspondent wrong". Matloff wrote: "But the reporters and photographers stationed in South Africa at the time were also compassionate human beings who exposed themselves to danger because they wanted to record history. This doesn't particularly come through in the film. Instead, Silver plays to the Hollywood stereotype of journalists as heartless outsiders. After a fun day taking pictures of black people massacring each other, the lads go back to the white suburbs and party — the implication being that the bloodshed is a game to them." Matloff worked with Marinovich and knew Silva, as she was a member of the Johannesburg press corps in the early 1990s. She wrote that Marinovich had disassociated himself from the film version. "It has the same title but it is not the same story. It's not my life. I don't see the character as me." In ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', Miriam Brent said "Frustratingly, though, while the film poses pertinent questions about when to put the camera down, it shies away from delving deeper into these moral dilemmas and the emotional strain faced by combat photographers. Instead we're introduced to a testosterone-fuelled world in which dodging bullets is just another way of getting kicks before the partying starts. … It's just a shame the accomplished cinematography isn't matched by a script that lets the true bravery and accomplishments of combat photojournalists shine through, as they deserve."

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bang-Bang Club Bang-Bang Club 2010 films Canadian biographical drama films South African biographical drama films 2010s English-language films English-language South African films English-language Canadian films Zulu-language films Xhosa-language films Afrikaans-language films 2010 biographical drama films Apartheid films Films based on non-fiction books Drama films based on actual events Films set in 1994 Films set in South Africa Films shot in South Africa 2010 drama films Biographical films about photographers Films about photojournalists Biographical films about photojournalists 2010s Canadian films 2010 multilingual films Canadian multilingual films English-language biographical drama films 2010s South African films