Distributor: Next Video
Rating: *** for film, no features
Film: One of the entertaining elements about DVDs is that you can occasionally find some golden oldies and here's one that managed to creep into the nation's collective consciousness and frame of reference.
You will catch a glimpse of some faces you haven't seen in a while. Arnold Vosloo with blond hair, Frank Opperman and Gysbert de Villiers without their widow's peak - pretty much everyone is younger and has hair. That's until they hit the army and meet the barber.
Vosloo plays Boetie, the spoilt stepson of a pre-1994 politician who ends up in the army as a ploy to help his step-dad's career.
Now, instead of making eyes at his pretty philosophy lecturer (Jana Cilliers) he has Eric Nobbs to contend with in the form of his army trainer. Conscription (and dodging the draft) was a reality for white South African males only but the movie does touch on the reality that some of them did end up in body bags.
Watching the film puts into perspective just how much life and movie-making has changed in this country. The clothes and haircuts are not the only things that have changed and the language seems somewhat dated, yet the movie was shot in the early 1990s.
It is fun to watch, even if it is just to cringe at the embarrassing dance moves, mullets and film boo-boos, like seeing the shadow of the boom.
Features: The movie has no features and the quality is a bit iffy since the DVD comes complete with scratches and dodgy sound, probably straight off the by-now very, very old master copy.