SA filmmakers have been on a roll recently. And the proliferation of films on streaming platforms is encouraging.
Also, the scripts and production value have been most praiseworthy. I’m talking about “Heart of the Hunter”, “A Soweto Love Story”, “Home Wrecker”, “Kandasamys: The Baby” and “Happiness Ever After”, among others.
With the bar raised by these movies, it’s disheartening to watch “Soweto Blaze”, a stoner comedy.
While I applaud the writer-director, Brad Katzen, for tackling a genre that’s not popular in Mzansi, it blows on several fronts.
The story is set in Soweto, where Mo (Matli Mohapeloa), a small-time pot dealer, working for a dirty cop, is hustling his way to a better life, which involves buying a food truck.
However, his plans are derailed by his stoner friends Dill (Sydney Ndlovu) and Pickle (Nyeleti Khoza), who are regular clients but are always broke.
When the two of them lose their current job, they are forced to come up with a backup plan, more so with their stash of weed running low.
Their cockamamie scheme involves kidnapping Thandi (Dimpho More), the defiant daughter of feared gangster, Lebo the Lion (Sello Sebotsane), and holding her for ransom.
But their plan is thwarted by Thandi running away from home. Not only that, she makes off with Lebo’s two million.
In the meantime, Dill and Pickle stash Thandi at Mo’s place, unbeknown to him.
What follows is a series of ridiculous events as everyone chases the money and, along the way, a romance seemingly develops.
Yes, I am aware that a stoner movie leans heavily into the absurd à la “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”, “Pineapple Express” or “Dazed and Confused”, with characters that have silly names and gross-out humour.
But this movie, which is high on ambition and low on the laughs, only gets some elements right, like the cast.
For me, the split-screen, tapping into the whole social media culture, comes across as haphazard. Often, it interrupts the flow of the unfolding chaos.
“Soweto Blaze” could have been a hit low-budget offering but it tripped up with its short-sightedness on the comedy front.
∎ “Soweto Blaze” is streaming on Netflix.