Vusi Madlazi returns to the South African village he left as a young boy (he was organizing against apartheid, and left in fear of his life) to bury his father. He meets up with his brother Ernest, who tells him their other brother Stephen couldn't be contacted. Vusi goes to Johannesburg to find him, but at first can only find his neighbor/girlfriend, Karin, a stripper. Vusi proceeds to learn how conditions have changed since the end of apartheid, not always for the better for black men.
Reviews
Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .
As Good As It Gets
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
ON DANGEROUS GROUND is the TV movie adaptation of a Jack Higgins novel about a secret document that allows Hong Kong to remain in British hands for another 100 years after 1997. Various factions do their utmost to get their hands on said document, so spymasters send in former IRA man Sean Dillon to do the job instead.The premise has dated now but this is a surprisingly good thriller given that it's a TV movie. ON DANGEROUS GROUND has plenty of action scenes to recommend it although it's clear that director Lawrence Gordon-Clark (who directed those fantastic BBC ghost stories in the 1970s) is better at atmosphere building than he is shoot-outs because this is oddly unexciting despite all the hijinks going on.Rob Lowe is an unusual choice for lead although I guess he had to be in it to sell this to overseas audiences. His character seems to be extraordinarily unlucky in this and watching all the scrapes he gets into is amusing. The supporting cast includes the dependable Kenneth Cranham and a brief but welcome turn from Jurgen Prochnow (DAS BOOT). Some of the acting is a little uneven but the story as a whole is watchable and fresh-feeling.
This film is extremely unimpressive, sorry Lawrence Gordon Clarke. I was in it too and played a bodyguard and had a fight scene with Robe Lowe, plus another scene.I really wanted to like it, truly I did, but it is just so painful to watch.It could have been so much better if the acting had been up to scratch. There were times on set that I thought I was witnessing children in a play ground running about shouting "Bang Bang Your'e dead"! Very disappointing to say the least, especially as I wanted to show the film off to my friends and family because I was in it.
OK, there are so many things wrong with this movie, I don't know where to start. I have been reading Jack Higgins for probably a decade and a half, so I am quite familiar with his work and his characters. First off, Rob Lowe???? Good actor, bad accent. Oh, wait, I forgot, he can't do an Irish accent. Also, Sean Dillon is described as a nondescript figure, as far as his build goes. The only qualities that make him the man we love is his 'Fair, almost white hair and his pale blue eyes'. Lowe, obviously, has neither of them. Well, almost the eyes... MAYBE. Hannah Bernstein, an intellectual Scotland Yard inspector. They got that right. However, Jack Higgins repeatedly dresses her in trouser suits. Brigadier Charles Ferguson, always in an unkempt state, dress-wise, except for his Guards tie. Also, the movie would've been much better had they followed the book a little more closely. The way which Ferguson and Dillon meet was in a different book altogether. And they didn't even get it right! The initial meeting of Asta and Dillon, again, not accurate. The arrangement made for reservations at Loch Dhu???? NOT EVEN CLOSE! In other words, as a Jack Higgins fan, I was embarrassed by this movie.
As the book was superb but it isn't quite there almost but not quite. It needed a little more of a jolt in the action/drama department and that is one characteristic that isn't present in most Jack Higgin's book-based movies which is a crying shame if you ask me. Rob Lowe is once again Mr. Sean Dillon, professional IRA terrorist contractor turned British Government assassin whose job this time is to recapture a vital document called the Chungking Convenant which allowed the British to keep Hong Kong for another 100 years. The problem is that the Mafia wants it as well and they dispatch a seemingly legitimate businessman and his beautiful daughter to beat Ferguson to the punch. I like the fact they kept the original cast members in these films to give them some stability and credibility which is unusual for the vast majority of TV movies. It is also amusing that another reviewer couldn't understand that Prochnow's daughter wasn't his real daughter she was his wife's real daughter and yes the Italian bad guy's name is Giovanni what did you think his name should be Ralph or Edward? The poor devil couldn't even figure out that Prochnow's character was HALF Italian not full Italian. Not a film you are going to watch routinely or even twice for that matter the point is to watch it so you can say you have if someone ever asks you. That's it end of story.
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