Mapantsula

Like its black anti-hero, the mapantsula (Zulu for small-time crook ) of the title, the movie makers do their job with swiftness, guile and gall. It’s a moral drama in disguise.

Mapantsula is timely and relevant 35 years later.

It gets far closer to the sights, sounds, smells and rhythms of Soweto life than an entire Attenborough of white liberal movies. Needless to say, it's banned from SA cinema screens.

Mr. Mogotlane makes Panic much more than a symbol, treating him as a raffish, amusingly overconfident figure at first and a visibly shaken man as the film progresses, until at last he utters the single syllable that encapsulates the film's final point.