Five Fingers for Marseilles (2018)

So, I just caught this South African film called Five Fingers for Marseilles (2018), which is kind of a modern day western. Now, just a heads up, this one is subtitled so be ready to do some reading when watching it. Five Fingers for Marseilles is an Uncork’d Entertainment project that was really cool to watch. Between the story and the action, I dug it from beginning to end.

Five Fingers of Marseilles is a drama/thriller/western that was directed by Michael Matthews. It was written by Sean Drummond and has a hundred and twenty-minute runtime. It’s rated NR (not rated) but has language and violence. Here’s what it’s about. Twenty years ago, a group of kids banded together to fight against police oppression. In a moment of fear, one of the kids did something that changed all of their lives. Now, freedom-fighter turned outlaw, Tau returns to his town in hopes of finding some peace and leaving his past behind him. Unfortunately, Tau finds his town has a new threat looming over it. If he’s going to help the town, he’ll have to pick up his gun one more time and fight…

The story that Drummond came up with is amazing and I really liked how everything unfolded. It has great character development and growth. The story grabs your attention and doesn’t let go. The movie opens up with the group of kids and then transitions over to them as adults. The way they re-introduce the kids as adults just flowed together so smoothly in the story.

Now, the storyline isn’t anything new really. You have a troubled man looking to put his past behind him. Unfortunately, he’s having trouble doing that. Then again, if you’re looking to get away from your past… why go back home? That’s the thing I never understood about this movies. Once he gets back home he finds out that he has a chance for redemption, but it means doing the one thing he was trying not to do, fight. The story did such a great job on not only following the pain of the main character but also all those involved.

I really liked the playthrough. The pace is a little slow, but it fit the movie and it never hit the boring level. Now, I knew this was supposed to be a “western” type movie, but I wasn’t sure how action packed it was going to be. As it turned out, to me, they found a perfect balance between the story and action. I think had they tried to pack in a ton of action the story would have suffered.

Some of the cast is Vuyo Dabula (Invictus), Hamilton Dhlamini (Otelo Burning), Zethu Dlomo (Black Sails), Kenneth Nkosi (The Looming Tower), Mduduzi Mabaso (Machine Gun Preacher), Aubrey Poolo (Le secret de Chanda), Lizwi Vilakazi (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom), Warren Masemola (The Dark Tower), Dean Fourie (Action Point), Anthony Oseyemi (The Salvation), Brendon Daniels (Gap Town), and Jerry Mofokeng (Lord of War). I thought all of the cast did a great job.

Something else that helped make Five Fingers for Marseilles so good was the awesome cinematography work done by Shaun Lee. I don’t know location wise, where the movie was shot, but where ever it was is a beautiful place and they caught some great scenery shots.