"Inspired" by real events, Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema takes place over a ten-year period and depicts the rise of Lucky Kunene (Jafta Mamabolo as a boy, Rapulana Seiphemo as an adult), a poor but clean-cut gas station attendant from Soweto who becomes a millionaire real-estate kingpin in Johannesburg. While the film has many of the generic qualities we associate with gritty crime dramas of the past, Jeruslema, submitted by South Africa to the Academy Awards to qualify as a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, stands out for its uncommonly vivid performances and stunning cinematography as well as its harsh, though mainly surface, look at the realities of the post-Apartheid years in South Africa.The film opens when Lucky and his best friend Zakes (Motlatsi Mahloko as a boy, Ronnie Nyakale as an adult), inspired by the euphoria surrounding the election of Nelson Mandela and the ANC, dream of a better life. Lucky has been accepted into college but without a scholarship, the only university he will attend will be, as he puts it, "the University of Life." Unfortunately, his ambition soon draws him and his friend into the criminal underworld of Soweto where he becomes a follower of gang leader Nazareth (Jeffrey Sekele), a former ANC guerrilla leader who received his training in Moscow.Nazareth teaches him the skills of carjacking which he calls "affirmative repossessions," and Lucky earns enough money to bring new furniture and appliances to his family. In basically the only light touch in the film, a hijacked car owner is forced to teach the hoodlums how to drive his car through trial and error. Like any addiction, however, the amount of money Lucky accumulates will never be enough and he is drawn into even more serious crimes. Thwarted by his lack of political connections and the social and economic situation he finds himself in, he moves to the crime-ridden Hillbrow district of Johannesburg where the film jumps several years.After the breakdown of his taxi business, Lucky concocts a semi-legal scheme to take over run-down tenements under the cover of being a charitable organization, The Hillbrow People's Housing Trust. "In the new South Africa, everyone deserved their entitlement," Lucky says. He becomes known as the "Robin Hood of Hillbrow," collecting rents and negotiating for a lower rent on behalf of the tenants, then holding out against the slumlords that have benefited from the tenant's miserable living conditions, forcing them to sell to the Housing Trust for a pittance. Throwing out the drug dealers and prostitutes, he promises to confront the racist power structure and provide the tenants with much needed reforms, but never really delivers, having to maintain a steady cash fund to buy more properties and repeat the same scheme.Even though he has become a slumlord millionaire, to the residents he is a saint. To the cops, however, particularly white cop Blakkie Swart (Robert Hobbs), he is just another hoodlum and scam artist. Trying to outwit Swart is one thing, but having to also deal with Nazareth and drug lord Tony Ngu (Malusi Skenjana) becomes increasingly dangerous. A relationship with a wealthy white woman, Leah Friedman (Shelly Meskin), in which he offers to help her brother escape from Ngu's clutches, shows his capacity for growth but provides only a temporary trip to the good side.With war building for control of the cities slums, confrontation with his rivals becomes inevitable and the blood begins to flow. Though it has more than its share of bloody violence, Jerusalema is a gripping thriller, entertaining and uncompromising in its no-holds barred realism, but also fails to dig very deep into the background of the country's urban decay and it's continuing racism. To its credit, Lucky is depicted neither as an inspiring hero nor a corrupt villain but somewhere in-between, a man with a strong entrepreneurial spirit whose heart is in the right place but one who has lost sight of his dreams and is blinded by power and greed and an ambiguous moral compass.

I don't care about who produces a movie or how old it is, for me its just about entertainment. One minute into the movie it starts with a guy in the prison talking about his past....very creative. So I realized "this is just a copycat of all the other random gangster movies". And I was damn right.There are lots of scenes that are just dull and unrealistic, without being funny or cool at all. The whole story is too predictable, boring and also kind of nonsensical.Don't watch this, if you like clever, funny or realistic gangster movies. This movie has a 2 point bonus for being from Africa. If this had been a Hollywood flick, it would have reached a 6 at max. So be warned.

I saw this film previewed on CNN and went to see it at the Zurich Film Festival with some American friends of mine. Being South African one could see that this film was simply a labour of love for the beloved country. Ralph Ziman, the self effacing director was on hand to talk about the film after the movie and I asked him how he got all the original footage of the Mandela inauguration etc, which he has cleverly weaved into the movie. His answer was amazing: He shot it himself over the years, which means that Ralph has single handedly created parts of a record of SA history no one else has. At the end of the day the film is broad enough and topical enough to override Tsotsi on many levels, dealing with the integral white black relationship in South Africa (the main black criminal building hijacker in the movie has an affair with a well to do white Jewish girl from the burbs) and how these parts of society interrelate. Last but not least, as it is not stuck in the modality of "Tsotsi only" it manages to look refreshingly at a broad swathe of the themes and reality affecting SA society today. Though Ralph denies it :) (correct me if I am wrong Ralph) Tsotsi has inevitably influenced the making of Jerusalema but on many levels is radically different. In a sense I missed the whimsical sadness of Tsotsi and Jerusalema pans through the skyline and scenes of our Johannesburg far too fast to really do it justice. More of that please. However, its a fast moving film that was enjoyed not just by me but by some Americans I dragged along to it. They really liked it proving that it scope and graphic talks to a worldwide audience. Bravo Ralph. Your country has cause to be very proud of you. You are a true son of South Africa.

Tsotsi is nothing compared to Jerusalema. Finally a real South African movie that can hold its head up high. Totally authentic, all respect to those involved. A mirror on Jozi and what our lives are really like. I hope other film makers will take note and pull their sox up. It's time to stop being embarrassed about being South African and take pride in our local industry. I strongly recommend all South Africans and go and see it on the big screen as the producers intended. I'm gonna spread the word. And please, do not by pirated DVD's; help enable the local movie industry to grow... I loved this movie. I cannot say it enough times. I am speechless. KUDOS MZANSI.