Stander

2004. Directed by Bronwyn Hughes.

THE SHOT: Thomas Jane goes from being a guilt-ridden Johannesburg riot-police guy to becoming its most notorious bankrobber.

TONE: Gritty 00s realism.

Good use of locations.  Good sense of place.  Similar in tone to Butch Cassidy and Bonnie and Clyde, both of which it mentions.  Will not achieve the classic status of those films, but who am I to judge.

Old-fashioned bank robberies.  Johannesburg, apparently, was unprepared for the likes of Stander.  They walk in, take the money, walk out.  No one is killed, only a few people injured.

Stander starts out robbing banks to make some kind of political statement.  Later, he just does it for the money.  Still later, it’s unclear why he keeps it up.  The narrative follows a similar course of dissipation.

SPECIAL FEATURES: Several scenes of Thomas Jane nude.

DOES CRIME PAY?  For a long time, it does.  Stander and his gang apparently robbed 80 or so banks over a period of four years or so.  But justice catches up to Thomas Jane on the mean streets of, yes, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Of course, we know now that Thomas Jane went on to clean up the mean streets of Tampa as The Punisher.