Five Fingers for Marseilles is a South African film released in 2017 directed by Michael Matthews starring Vuyo Dabula, Hamilton Dlamini, and Zethu Dlomo. It is best classified as a neo Western, it takes all of the key elements of the classic Hollywood western and transfers them into a rural South African setting.
Synopsis
During the colonization of South Africa the small town of Marseilles was constructed around a railroad track. Initially all of the local residents thrived under colonial rule because they all had jobs at the railroad. As those jobs slowly dried up so too did the town but imperial officials continued to come to the town to extort money from the local residents. A group of friends formed a pact to protect their town but one member of the group Tau took things too far and ended up killing two officers and was forced to flee. 20 years later he returns to his hometown and discovers that things have gotten significantly worse. The town is now being controlled by a gang lead by Sepoko, played by Dlamini. Tau has to reunite his former group and enlist some new friends in order to save the town from being overrun.
A South African Western
This film has been dubbed the first ever South African Western. It’s important to note that this film is not a Hollywood western set in South Africa, it is very much its own culturally unique artifact. The main reason I even sought out this film was because it was directed by Michael Matthews. He recently directed the Dylan O’Brien movie Love and Monsters and I thought that Matthews’ direction was particularly strong in that film so I went back to his first feature to see if Love and Monsters was just a fluke and it certainly was not.
A lot of Western towns can be pretty generic, Matthews manages to give Marseilles a very dynamic and unique feel to it. He does this, in part, by very clearly establishing the town’s geography. The older poorer part of the town is at the top of a hill, this part of town is called Railway. The bottom of the hill is the more modern and more affluent part of town that’s getting new houses and clean drinking water. The Mayor is willing to let Sepoko and his men take over Railway if they agree not to venture down the hill, obviously Sepoko goes back on this agreement almost immediately. This draws a clear parallel to the larger history of colonization in South Africa, the destruction of the old traditional ways of life to make way for the supposed benefits of modernity.
The Feel of this World
Matthews’ real strength as a director is his ability to build interesting worlds in his movies. He is able to portray how a world feels very efficiently and this immediately draws the audience into the story. His character development is still a little bit lacking though. Vuyo Dabula plays the main character Tau and he does a fine job at embodying the stoic reluctant anti hero that is a staple in most Westerns. He doesn’t do much to elevate the material he is given but he is solid anchor for this movie. Zethu Dlomo plays Lerato, she is the main female lead but isn’t really given anything to do. Her and Tua’s relationship is interesting in the sense that it is a relationship of longing rather than romance. In a different life her and Tau might have ended up together but how things played out that just wasn’t meant to be. I think it’s a good thing that there wasn’t a traditional romantic relationship between these two characters but it unfortunately meant that Dlomo was left with very little material to work with.
WHAT A VILLIAN!
Most of the acting performances in the film are solid, none of them really standout aside from one. Hamilton Dlamini is outstanding in this movie. He tears up every single scene that he’s in, he leaves the scenery torn to pieces after he exits frame. The best parts of this movie are where his character Sepoko and Dabula’s Tau are facing off against one another. I would describe his character as a mix between Javier Bardem’s Silva from Skyfall and Emperor Palpatine from Return of the Jedi. His character is so enjoyable to watch just because of how much he revels in his own villainy. He gets so much joy out of being evil. He also has a weird moral compass guiding his decisions which gives his character some much needed depth. There is a sequence where Sepoko and Tau are talking and Sepoko is recounting how his mother was struck by lightning while giving birth and he had to crawl out of her charred body. He’s saying all this as thunder and lightning start to bombard the cliffside they’re on, it’s the most badass sequence I’ve seen in a movie in quite a while.
Poor Pacing
The cinematography is another great element of this movie, there are some shots of the plains of South Africa that are truly breathtaking. Based on the terrain you would not be surprised if this movie were set in Texas or Wyoming. I think one place where the movie falters is with it’s pacing. The movie starts with a sequence showing the childhood friends form the group they call the Five Fingers of Marseille, there’s almost a Goonies vibe going on at this point. When Tau kills the two officers, that is the loss of innocence for all of these kids. It’s a really entertaining way to kick off the movie but after the flash forward the movie starts to drag. You see Tau living a criminal lifestyle and he decides to return to the town, the movie is slow and quiet during this section. It works well to build up tension but at the same time you start to feel like not much is happening story-wise. Once Sepoko enters the story in earnest the movie picks up and you feel like it’s heading towards this big climax but the big climax ends up being pretty disappointing.
A Sub Par Climax
The final confrontation between Sepoko’s men and Tau’s group has very weird pacing, there is a short initial showdown then the action abruptly starts and then just as quickly abruptly ends. The action itself is not very good, it’s clunky and unfocused. There is one more final standoff that mirrors one of the first scenes in the movie but we don’t really spend enough time with the other characters, aside from Tau, so the standoff isn’t very effective. Also another issue with the ending is Tau’s sudden Wolverine like ability to regenerate health. The guy gets shot four times over the course of 2 days and is still functioning perfectly.
I think a lot more focus could have been placed on the character of Cockroach, he is the member of the original Five fingers who was the punching bag of the group. After Tau leaves Cockroach (his real name is Luyanda) gets captured and tortured by state officials. This trauma has lasting effects, when he becomes the chief of police he uses violence to demonstrate his power within the town. He obviously harbors a lot of resentment towards Tau for abandoning the group but all of this is shown through short glances and silent cutaways. Even one extra interaction between Tau and Luyanda before their final showdown would have gone a long way in making the audience more emotionally attached to thier relationship.
Final Thoughts
I enjoyed The Five Fingers for Marseilles, it presents a fully realized world that is culturally unique to South Africa. It’s ability to reinterpret the Western genre to incorporate themes of colonization, modernity and the inherit darkness of human nature is commendable. However, it’s pacing issues and lack of character development hold it back from reaching its full protentional. All that being said I would give The Five Fingers for Marseilles a 3.5 out of 5 stars.
