Movies about war photographers are tricky. The lives of these risk-takers have plenty of adrenaline and a certain romance–but if those elements overwhelm the subject of the war itself, the emphasis can be a little inappropriate.
“The Bang Bang Club” tries to balance that, but falls short in the end. It’s a shame, because the setting is vital and the photographers in question — four friends, two of whom won Pulitzer Prizes for their work — are significant.
As we’ve seen even in recent weeks, the job of battle journalist remains terribly dangerous. Tim Hetherington, the photojournalist who was Oscar-nominated last year as the co-director of the Afghanistan documentary “Restrepo,” died April 20 under fire in Libya.
So there’s a lot of built-in drama for the real-life people in “The Bang Bang Club,” four South African photographers who snapped some shocking pictures in the early 1990s. Adapted from a book by two of the journalists, Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva, the film uses Marinovich as the main thread in the tale.
He was the first to win a Pulitzer, for a horrifying photo of a man set on fire. He’s portrayed by Ryan Phillippe, an actor who’s carving out a niche for himself playing characters with good and bad attributes.
The other Pulitzer went to Kevin Carter (Taylor Kitsch), a strung-out adventurer prone to manic highs and troubling lows. His picture is one of the most famous/notorious of the last 25 years: He traveled to Sudan and captured the unforgettable image of a starving child kneeling while a vulture creeps nearby.
The mix of acclaim and personal agony that dogged Carter after the photo was published (it raised the issue of a journalist’s moral responsibility when in the presence of horror) is dealt with, although not deeply.
Director Steven Silver, a South Africa native, is absolutely sincere in his approach, and he does try to raise issues of how much these guys are enjoying their derring-do, and why. He also attempts to fill us in on the issues gnawing away at South Africa in the waning days of apartheid, but this is overshadowed by the photogs’ personal stories.
That includes Marinovich’s affair with a photo editor (Malin Akerman), which maybe gets too much screen time. The action sequences are taut enough, and the sense of danger is live, which is why it’s disappointing to say that the movie overall just doesn’t come together.
The toll is high on these characters. Even after the movie was completed, co-author Joao Silva met disaster: He stepped on a mine in Afghanistan in October and lost both legs. It’s no wonder those who take this job have to be unusual sorts of people.
“The Bang Bang Club” (2 stars)
A mixed-bag account of four South African photographers who became famous for their bravado in the 1990s (winning two Pulitzers among them), and the toll their job took on them. The danger is convincingly re-created, but the film can’t quite make its different pieces come together. With Ryan Phillippe.
Rated: Not rated; probably R for violence, language
Showing: Northwest Film Forum
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