Stander
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Movie Reviews of Stander
Movie Review: It IS a true story!
Summary: 4 Stars
I watched this recently on DVD in South Africa - it is frighteningly realistic - the accents, cars etc etc. This is the TRUE story of the Andre Stander legacy - I remember him and his gang being in the news all the time - each time getting more and more adventurous. Get it - watch it - great movie as well as being factually correct - 90% of the time.Movie Review: Love this movie
Summary: 4 Stars
Good movie from South Africa about a cop that starts to rob banks in protest of the South African pro-apartheid government.Movie Review: PROPAGANDA WOVEN INTO A TRUE CRIMES TALE
Summary: 3 Stars
STANDER is another political message flick (yes, another!), the message being how oppressive and brutal was the Apartheid era. No, that is not the entire story. STANDER is also a superb action and adventure tale of a white cop who goes bad and starts robbing banks. The writer of STANDER would have us believe that Stander's turn to crime is due to guilt for his actions against a black man during a riot. That may be true but it also just may be true that Andre Stander, played wonderfully by Tom Jane, was just a crook and a rotten cop. Leave it to Hollywood to tell us again and again how evil whites are. Of course, some years after Apartheid came Rwanda where black Hutus slaughtered a million black Tutus in one year, maybe a 1000 times the lynchings in the US in one hundred years. Yet, in this movie, Stander is so burdered by guilt for his "misdeed" that he starts robbing banks. In light of Rwanda, this seems grotesquely silly but strangely redeeming. How many Hutus felt guilty for hacking their brothers to death, man, woman and child, with machetes purchased from China so that they didn't have to waste bullets? I recommend STANDER for the action, the photography and for the compelling "true" story. It is a decent film about a brazen, tough cop who went bad. But it is always useful to keep history in perspective when watching subtle propagranda woven into an adventure tale.Movie Review: IT DESERVES A WATCH
Summary: 3 Stars
AFTER KILLING A BLACK MAN, A COP [TOM JANE] DECIDES TO QUIT HIS JOB AND BEGIN ROBBING BANKS. DOESN'T START OFF TOO WELL BUT, IT IMPROVES AS THINGS BEGIN TO PROGRESS. THE PLOT IS GOOD, THE ACTING IS DECENT, AND WHILE IT'S NOT A MASTERPIECE ON ANY LEVEL, IT'S STILL BETTER THAN MOST DIRECT-TO-VIDEO EFFORTS. TOM JANE, WHO STARRED IN LAST YEAR'S VERSION OF ''THE PUNISHER'', PUTS ON A GOOD PERFORMANCE IN THIS MOVIE. IF YOU NEED SOME TIME TO KILL, HEAD TO YOUR LOCAL VIDEOSTORE AND RENT THIS. THIS MOVIE IS BASED ON A TRUE STORY.Movie Review: Stander Falls Down
Summary: 2 Stars
Tom Jane, who recently starred in the dissappointing, "The Punisher" dissappoints yet again "Stander."
Here he stars in the real life account of Andres Stander, a White Apartheid-era South African cop who later became his country's most notorious bank robber.
To his credit, Jane gives a solid perfomance. But he's failed by a weak script which never fleshes his character out. As a result, Stander remains enigma not only to his family, friends, and partners in crime but also to the viewer.
The movie never really lets us see what makes Stander tick and what drives him to bank robbery. We are led to believe that it stems from his role in the police suppression of a Black South African protest march against the country's education policies. When White South African cops respond with lethal violence, Stander shoots an unarmed Black man.
The movie suggests that this action plunges him into a deep emotional and spiritual crisis that finds him questioning the very system he's been laboring in service to.
I can't buy that because Stander is shown to be a high ranking, motivated officer who is well-liked by his peers and superiors. He is even referred to at one point as "the youngest captain in the history of the force."
Are we to believe that Stander achieved this level of success in this system in some sort of blissful ignorance that his government was corrupt, racist, and violent? Can we accept that a law enforcement officer of this rank and prominence in South Africa at that time had not only never before engaged in unnecessary force against Blacks but was also clueless about what his fellow cops really got up to whenever they stormed the Black townships?
The movie also doesn't do a good job of explaining whether or not Stander saw crime as a means of atoning in some way for past actions or if he just decided buy into another form of corruption purely for personal gain.
This is because Stander, as shown here, certainly wasn't a Robin Hood figure who stole money only to give it to poor, South African Blacks.
The film depicts only one instance where Stander gives stolen money to a Black person, in this case a pan-handling child. The action seems to be motivated more by a desire to not be caught with evidence than by any sense of altruism.
Director Bronwen Hughes seems unable to decide if this film should be a commentary on the policies of Apartheid-era South Africa or just a ripping crime yarn. "Stander" ultimately emerges as neither.
A dissappointment.