Crimes in ‘Tsotsi’? Poverty. Mischance.

When the mugging he masterminds ends in murder, and a member of his gang chooses this delicate moment to make some ill-advised inquiries into his past, Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) beats his buddy senseless and runs out into the rainy night, demons nipping at his heels. He stops to catch his breath in front of a beautiful house, just as its owner is pulling up in a BMW. Tsotsi seizes the moment, and the car, shooting the woman when she tries to climb back in on the passenger side. It’s not until he is nearly back to the township that Tsotsi hears the baby gurgling in the back seat.

The official South African entry for the Academy Awards and a nominee in the best foreign-language film category, “Tsotsi” was adapted by Gavin Hood, who also directed, from the novel by playwright Athol Fugard. Tsotsi -- his name literally means thug in the patois of the Soweto townships -- is the steely-eyed leader of a small band of heavies. There’s the now out-of-commission Boston (Mothusi Magano), who once dreamed of being a teacher; Butcher (Zenzo Ngqobe), a murderous creep; and Aap (Kenneth Nkosi), a slow-witted bully with murky allegiances. Hood transposed the story from 1950s Johannesburg, where it was originally set, to the present, both for financial reasons and for greater ease of relating, though it’s not exactly good news that the story adapts so seamlessly to post-apartheid South Africa. But then, that’s less a comment on that country’s political history than on global poverty in general, and the depressing universality of its effects. Fugard’s novel ends with Tsotsi being literally crushed by the fascist state. Hood’s film ends on a more hopeful note, although in the absence of a specific villain, the circumstances make you queasier. Who’s to blame for Tsotsi’s terrible life?

Hood avoids overt references to South Africa’s political past, actually, and it’s hard to know what to make of it. All of Tsotsi’s victims are black, though they range from rich to middle class to poor. (The only whites in the film are a pair of more or less benign cops.) But he draws straight and steady lines from Tsotsi’s criminal present to his suffering past. An AIDS orphan whose father abused him, Tsotsi eventually graduated from sleeping in the orphan hive of the stacked drainpipes outside the township to a corrugated steel shack of his own by sheer force of will and repression of memory.

The flashbacks are meant to bridge the gap between roving menace and besotted dad, but they mostly just compromise the movie’s naturalism and suggest a lack of confidence in the plausibility of the premise. They also make an overenthusiastic argument for nurture in the old debate, dressing up Tsotsi’s childhood traumas as latent paternal instincts, waiting for the right moment to spring: crouching nurturer, hidden father.

Whatever its weaknesses, “Tsotsi” is redeemed by its excellent performances. Chweneyagae has the amazing capacity to look like a hardened criminal one moment, a child the next. After a series of mishaps involving newspaper diapers and condensed milk, Tsotsi follows a shantytown Madonna named Miriam (Terry Pheto) home one afternoon and holds her up at gunpoint, demanding she feed his baby. Tsotsi sits and watches, his hard edges visibly softening -- the implication apparently being that the key to crime reduction is to put more nursing mothers and cute babies on the street. Still, it’s a pleasure to watch the interplay of emotions on Chweneyagae’s face as he contemplates Miriam and imagines -- you imagine -- forming a little family (at gunpoint) of his own.

What makes “Tsotsi” ultimately as heartbreaking as it is, is Chweneyagae’s subtle characterization. He imbues the character with a dreaminess that encourages you to dream with him, drawing you in to the overlooked tragedy of his life. By refusing to trump it all up with unnecessary bombast, distractingly famous faces, lung-collapsing histrionics and excessive post-nasal drip (as witnessed in last week’s carjacked baby movie), Hood lets the story unfold at a steady, unhurried pace, cutting only when necessary, and allowing the actors, and the audience, to absorb the impact of each moment. The result is that the final scene creeps up on you quietly, with equally quiet and devastating effect. Having just this week watched some of the most idiotic screen violence I’ve ever seen, I can confidently attest to the devastating emotional power of nonviolence. Chweneyagae’s expression at the end of the film is more jolting and painful than any bang and spurt, and Hood has the stomach not to turn away.

*

‘Tsotsi’

MPAA rating: R for violence

A Miramax Films release. Writer-director Gavin Hood. Based on the novel by Athol Fugard. Producer Peter Fudakowski. Cinematographer Lance Gewer. Editor Megan Gill. Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes. In tsotsi-taal with English subtitles. At Century 15, Westfield Shoppingtown Century City (310) 289-4AMC; ArcLight, Sunset at Ivar, Hollywood (323) 464-4226; South Coast Village 3, Sunflower across from South Coast Plaza, Santa Ana (800) FANDANGO 162#; the NuWilshire 2, 1314 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 281-8223.