Tsotsi

TV Guide Ken Fox

Powerful crime drama does more than just expose the criminal underbelly of South African township life.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

What a simple and yet profound story this is.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

This powerful South African drama turns on the debut performance of young Presley Chweneyagae as the hood, and it's magnificent: a stone-faced killer in the opening scenes, he becomes an open book as the story progresses, as frightened, confused, and needy as the baby he drags around town in a shopping bag.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

It grabs you from a symbolic opening scene of gang members rolling the dice -- the odds, it soon becomes clear, are stacked against them getting lucky -- and never lets go.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

As Tsotsi, Chweneyagae turns his face into a living battle mask -- curved, molded and sandpapered into smooth ruthlessness. But as the story unfolds, Tsotsi's mask begins to crack, and his humanity begins to flow through.

Empire Liz Beardsworth

Hood handles his material so deftly that a conclusion which could have been mawkish and sentimental is instead bittersweet, both painful and quietly affirming.

Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer

Packs an unexpected emotional wallop. Gavin Hood's film tells a story of violence and redemption that's even more remarkable when you consider that neither of the lead performers had ever acted in a movie previously.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

An explosive wide-screen vision of the street life of Soweto, bursting with music, danger and vitality, and the extraordinary story of a ruthless young criminal known only as Tsotsi.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Made with local talent by a South African director, Tsotsi is lifted above the current slew of movies portraying Africa as a helpless victim of its many problems, redeemable only by sympathetic white Westerners (as in John Boorman’s sermonizing 2004 drama "In My Country," and to a lesser degree "The Constant Gardener"), by its vigorously transcendent spirit of self-help.

Film Threat Phil Hall

Tsotsi emerges as being among the finest films ever to come out of Africa. It is a brilliant, jolting and altogether powerful blast of energy and emotion.

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

Brutal but believable, the film in some ways harks back to early Hollywood, when Jimmy Cagney or Richard Widmark played callow villains out of their depth in everyday life.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Based on a play by Athol Fugard, Tsotsi is South Africa's entry in this year's Oscar race for Best Foreign-Language Film. This remarkable movie means to shake you, and boy does it ever.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

When a director can take a reprehensible monster and, over the course of a scant 90 minutes, turn audience reaction from distaste to sympathy, that's the mark of an adept filmmaker. This occurs in Tsotsi.

Premiere Kelly Borgeson

Hood's film, with its bold, beautiful cinematography and hard-thumping kwaito music, brings us into a different world, and then helps us to understand it.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The result is the kind of feel-bad/feel-good movie that brazenly manipulates our response and leaves us grateful for it -- so relentlessly dark is the premise that, by the end, we just need to believe in the prospect of light.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

With a predictable and borderline manipulative plot, Tsotsi depends on strong performances for its impact, and its cast delivers.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

To enjoy it, you have to make a leap of faith wide enough to sail over a Grand Canyon of disbelief.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Aside from its South African setting and flavor, there isn't a lot in Tsotsi that differs from its legion of similar Hollywood counterparts. But the movie's heart, along with Hood's refusal to sugarcoat the grim reality, wins you over no matter how many times you've seen this story told.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Evocatively shot by cinematographer Lance Gewer in warm browns and reds that make Tsotsi seem all the more chilling, the film records his gradual metamorphosis from id-driven brute into empathic, if crude, care-giver.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Though the story teeters on easy sentimentality, it doesn't succumb. Though unabashedly emotional, it isn't maudlin. Tsotsi's story feels believable. It is made all the more engaging by a wonderful soundtrack of African Kwaito music.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Tense, fiercely optimistic movie.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It's compelling material, even if you don't completely buy Tsotsi's transition.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

It's a solid, earnest drama of moral redemption that places old cliches in an unfamiliar setting.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The cast is so good that a kind of counterpoint arises between the riskily lachrymose story and the firm verity of the acting.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

To his credit, Mr. Hood's meditation on truth and reconciliation doesn't traffic in the cheap thrills of art-house exploitation, like "City of God"; he wrings tears with sincerity, not cynicism.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Whatever its weaknesses, Tsotsi is redeemed by its excellent performances.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Presley Chweneyagae's Tsotsi makes his presence deeply felt. In a world of heedless children wielding guns, his tale is a heartening one.

Variety Leslie Felperin

Powered by a pounding soundtrack of dance hall Kwaito music, the pic has vital, urban energy similar to the Brazilian crossover "City of God" but with a tauter, more conventional storyline.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

A widescreen wallow in socially enforced slum nihilism brought to you by Miramax, Tsotsi could be pegged as "City of God" relocated to the Soweto shanties, but it eschews the ironic swagger and strobe-speed action of Fernando Meirelles's lurid jigsaw for a more conventional arc.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

In trying to find the decency in a killer, the film anxiously accounts for his every misdeed. It's a little like watching "City Of God" morph into "Three Men And A Baby."

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

More calculated than a Starbucks sampler CD, the picture could win the up-from-hardship award.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Tsotsi never comes across as anything but a brutal cipher, and serious issues such as black-on-black crime in the townships are left unexplored.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Ends in a cascade of sentimentality straight out of Hollywood. Not even Chweneyagae's excellent acting or Lance Gewer's dark photography can save the film.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

A confused and improbable redemption song.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

What Tsotsi fails to explain is how the mere introduction of a baby can melt the cruel cycle of criminality and disregard for others.