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AGENT 2000 – Die Laksman
With Paul Loots, Ruan Wessels, Isel Bezuidenhoudt, Janic Botha, David James, Karen Wessels, Amalia Uys, Sharleen Surtie-Richards
Written by Hydie Loots
Directed by Stefan Nieuwoudt
Back in the day (of the ‘70s and especially the ‘80s) Afrikaans language teen shows were an almost daily occurrence on SABC TV. Since the ‘90s it has dropped off drastically to where it is virtually non-existent today. This action adventure movie can certainly fill that gap.
A gifted tech-savvy kid is called in as an agent to trap a high-level bully at a school, known as Die Laksman (The Executioner). Having to go under cover as a nerd to lure out the bully, he believes this will be a swiftly solved case. But, it proves more challenging, especially when he becomes more personally invested.
Far from 007 or even Cody Banks, naturally this Film Factory produced movie doesn’t have close to those kinds of budgets, so they have to rely on characters and situations (with some tech and FX thrown in where possible), and some humour (though often a little lame) . Some action sequences attempt to be spectacular, but sadly fail in that respect.
The spy movie rip-off music is a bit too overused and the pop-rock songs peppered throughout reminded of something that always bugs me – are any young Afrikaans male singers not trying to sound like Francois Van Coke?
The Afrikaans feature film industry has grown substantially over the last few years (mainly with light romantic comedies), and The Film Factory has played a big part in that growth – factors like the elimination of Afrikaans content from public TV plus more affordable digital production cost certainly fueling this new cinema spurt.
2 / C
- Paul Blom
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