adminFilm: Schuks; Your Country Needs You
Cast: Leon Schuster, Rob van Vuuren, Alfred Ntombela, Lare Birk, Zandile Majola.
Director: Gray Hofmeyer
Cinema: Eastgate
Running time: 102 minutes
Type of film: Farce
Age restriction: All ages permitted
Reviewed by Prof Joel White
For more than a quarter-century I have been distressed by the awareness that I have been missing out on one of Africa’s celebrated icons: Leon Schuster.
I feel that I have now imbibed a full dose of this South African gold mine; and I am knocking on the door seeking entrance to his fan club. Although not the director of this 2013 film now packing them in at Eastgate, it is made clear to us in the audience that it is his long-earned reputation which, preceding him, makes the outrageousness of this film fully potable and digestible.
Deviating slightly from its American counterpart, the English spelling Shucks, which, essentially, gives the meaning “It’s no big deal”, is a tribute to the importance which Leon Schuster has been as South Africa’s film industry continues to impose its credentials on the cinema world.
Keeping the audience screaming with laughter, the film is made up of 10 discreet episodes, all built around its unique core.
Presenting himself and his corps of confederates in crime, and making an outrageous proposal to an unsuspecting by-stander – read “victim” – the cinema audience gets to witness the reaction of people to proposals often salacious which have only previously appeared to them in dreams.
Posing as willing, if unsophisticated, investors in a dying company, they lead the impoverished principals to believe that they have been rescued.
Putting a petite actress in a pram, who steals item after item in a supermarket, placing them under her blanket in the full sight of fellow shoppers and filming their reactions. Taking over a shop which sells beds and allowing customers to “test” the mattresses, leading to complete collapse of the beds as they lie on them. Placing an abandoned crying bay and filming the various reactions of passers-by.
This film will make even the unhappy “sourpuss” laugh. Highly recommended.
Online Reporter