Inside Summary
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Arthur Penn
Genres: Drama, Historical Film
Rating:
A solemn look at South African apartheid, Arthur_Penn's claustrophobic drama centers on a pair of political interrogations, separated by a decade. The film's first part, set in 1988, centers on the imprisonment of Marty Strydom (Eric_Stoltz), an Afrikaaner university professor held as a political prisoner under suspicion of conspiring with anti-government forces. His case falls into the hands of the villainous Colonel Kruger (Nigel_Hawthorne), a brilliant and evil torturer determined to break the idealistic Strydom's spirit. The conclusion takes place nearly a decade later, after apartheid's fall. Now it is Krueger who is under confinement, and subjected to unrelenting questioning from a black South African (Louis_Gossett_Jr.) looking to beat Kruger at his own manipulative game. While offering numerous powerful confrontations between its characters, Bima_Stagg's screenplay provides few narrative surprises, and some may find the film's limited setting and bare-bones treatments monotonous. However, Penn's stark style suits the harsh subject matter and keeps the focus strongly upon the cast, who provide appropriately intense performances. Judd Blaise, Rovi
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