Four Corners

Ever since Oliver Schmitz's Mapantsula (1988), South African cinema has specialised in gangland sagas that expose the grim realities of township life. Yet, while cinematographer Vicci Turpin achieves a brutal poetry in exploring the sprawling poverty of the Cape Flats shanty town, screenwriters Hofmeyr Scholtz and Terence Hammond opt for a more melodramatic approach that sees too many loose ends conveniently tied up in a sentimentally optimistic finale. Director Ian Gabriel is also guilty of over-egging sequences with his use of slow-motion in depicting what often feels like designer violence. However, Brendon Daniels impresses as the former member of the "28" gang who vows to go straight after wreaking vengeance on the "26" rivals who killed his father and stole his home. Jezriel Skei is equally effective as the 13-year-old orphan who hopes his talent for chess will keep him out of the clutches of 26 commander Irshaad Ally. Gabriel makes pioneering use of the Sabela gangland code, but struggles to integrate subplots involving grieving doctor Lindiwe Matshikiza and cop Abduragman Adams, who is pursuing a serial killer who leaves scripture-related clues at the scene of the crime.