The actors can handle the heavy lifting, but this doesn't give you much more than a well-done cable documentary.
In My Country (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:80
Fresh:18
Rotten:62
Average Rating:4.8/10
Consensus: A well-intentioned but melodramatic look at post-Apartheid South Africa.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for language, including descriptions of atrocities
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Mar 11, 2005 Limited
Synopsis: Langston Whitfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is a Washington Post journalist. His editor provocatively sends him to South Africa to cover the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, in which the... Langston Whitfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is a Washington Post journalist. His editor provocatively sends him to South Africa to cover the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, in which the perpetrators of murder and torture on both sides during the Apartheid era are invited to come forward and confront their victims. By telling the unvarnished truth and expressing contrition, they may be granted amnesty. Can the deep wounds of Apartheid be healed through reconciliation? Langston is deeply sceptical. He tracks down Col. De Jager, the most notorious torturer in the SA Police and tries to penetrate the mind of a monster, an experience that obliges him to confront his own demons. Anna Malan (Juliette Binoche), is an Afrikaans poet who is covering the hearings for radio. As a white South African she is shattered by the accounts of the cruelty and depravity committed by her fellow countrymen. Anna and Langston must both question their sense of identity. Where do they each belong? How responsible are they for what is done in the name of their respective countries? The moving testimony of the victims affects them deeply. In different ways they are both estranged from their families, and their shared experience draws them ever closer to each other. It is a story charting the unfathomable depths of human cruelty and the redeeming power of forgiveness and love. -- © Sony Pictures Classics [More]
Starring: Juliette Binoche, Samuel L. Jackson, Brendan Gleeson, Menzi "Ngubs" Ngubane
Starring: Juliette Binoche, Samuel L. Jackson, Brendan Gleeson, Menzi "Ngubs" Ngubane
Director: John Boorman
Director: John Boorman
Screenwriter: Ann Peacock
Producer: Robert Chartoff, Mike Medavoy, Kieran Corrigan
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
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Reviews for In My Country
A series of brief, appallingly simplistic vignettes that, rather than conveying the depth and complexity of South Africa's history and culture, distill it to the point of distortion.
Very nearly destroying the picture is an affair between Jackson and Binoche's characters. Any scene of intimacy evoked titters from the audience.
The script...intelligently explores...the profound need to make sense out of madness and to find emotional peace in its aftermath...Sustains a deep and moving involvement.
In My Country is a film with great ideas - and important ones. Frustratingly, they are undermined by Hollywood plot contrivances, generally poor writing and at least one case of woeful miscasting.
Is it a docudrama about South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings? Or is it love story? The problem with In My Country is that it tries to be both.
We want to know more about the stories of real-life South Africans, but the Oscar nominees keep standing right in front of them.
Peace, love, and understanding, apparently, are best served with a side order of .45-caliber satisfaction.
In spite of narrative missteps that negate the possibility of an empathetic protagonist, "In My Country" does viably introduce the African principle of "Ubuntu" whereby evil transgressions are absolved rather than revenged.
Boorman's politics and own truth-telling aims are admirable, as they were in his underrated 1995 film, Beyond Rangoon.
See In My Country anyway, because it's doubtful we'll get another movie too soon that raises the issue of vengeance versus forgiveness -- and endorses the latter in the name of a nation's spiritual well-being.
A sludgy quagmire of sanctimonious moralizing and overbearing melodrama.
Boorman treats this moving, important subject with restraint, tact, and candid views of horrors suffered by the nation.
Latest News for In My Country
August 17, 2006:
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September 08, 2005:
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