Choosing a new way of life can be easier said than done

“Your cattle are your money, bank, store, everything,” we hear, at the beginning of Anjali Nayar’s Gun Runners. “If you don’t have cows, you can die.”

Shot over a 10-year period, the NFB documentary follows Kenyan cattle rustlers (a.k.a. warriors) turned marathoners Julius Arile and Robert Matanda as they attempt to chart a new path. Easier said than done. The road to glory is full of bumps and detours.

The soft-spoken Arile has natural athletic ability enhanced by years of dashing through the mountains, evading capture by police. But he also has demons, ranging from his previously violent lifestyle to the fateful events that led to him leaving his family behind in his early teens and becoming a warrior.

Arile ends up at training camps filled with others like him, with lofty ambitions and nothing to lose. When he begins competing on the international circuit, he finds himself near the front of the pack, but unable to push through to the finish line.

“After 25 km, everybody gets quiet and tired,” he says. “You remember only your problems.”

And problems, he’s got. Onto

After 25 km, everybody gets quiet and tired. You remember only your problems.

his third wife, he is confronted at home by his brothers and mother, upset that while they have been working the land, he has been off touring the world, with nothing to show for it.

Matanda is the more boisterous of the two, and we sense that his past is darker than Arile’s. When asked how many people he has killed, he merely looks off-camera and remains silent. Unable to keep pace at his first running camp, Matanda becomes disenchanted and even envious of his friend’s success; or perhaps his concerns are simply closer to home.

He becomes chairman of the warriors at the Tegla Loroupe Peace Camp, an organization launched by the Kenyan distance running champion and activist which helped him, Arile and other warriors find another way to live.

Later, through a growing range of community work, Matanda becomes involved in politics. But stakes are high when he begins trading in his family’s maize stores to cover campaigning costs.

It is from here that Nayar’s film really gets interesting. Stakes are incredibly high for these men, and the outcome is far from certain. Ultimately, as this probing documentary shows, it’s not about the destination but the daily struggle and the little successes that motivate one to keep moving forward, one step at a time.