Award-winning SA thriller hits big screen
Film festival thriller ‘iNumber Number’ opens in cinemas today
THE much-awaited new South African action thriller starring S’dumo Mtshali, Presley Chweneyagae and Hlubi Mboya is hitting the South African cinema circuit today.
Written and directed by Donovan Marsh, iNumber Number is about a pair of honest cops battling both corrupt colleagues and a gang of armoured-car thieves.
It is showing at Ster-Kinekor The Bridge in PE from today, and had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September last year.
It won the audience award at this year’s Jozi Film Festival and the best screenplay at the Africa International Film Festival. The film is about two honest cops, Chili (Mtshali) and Shoes (Chweneyagae), who have been partners in the police for eight years. After they make a risky arrest, their corrupt superior refuses to give them the large reward that is due to them.
Chili feels cheated and enraged, so when he and Shoes infiltrate a cash-in-transit heist gang, he convinces Shoes to take part in a once-off score to recover the money he feels the two of them deserve.
“A must-see for action fans, the film has all the tension, double crossing, gunfire and explosions that a heist film should have, as well as some great humour and outstanding cinematography,” producer Harriet Gavshon said.
“It provides an excellent plat- form for Presley’s performance as Chili’s somewhat reluctant sidekick.”
Chweneyagae is best known for playing the lead role in Gavin Hood’s 2005 film adaptation of Athol Fugard’s Tsotsi , which won an Oscar for best foreign film.
Mboya, who plays Shoes’s long-suffering wife, Gugu, is known for portraying HIV-positive Nandipha Sithole in television soapie Isidingo. She also starred in the 2011 movie How to Steal 2 Million.
“Hlubi and Presley give great performances in what is a hard-core, roller-coaster of a film,” Helen Kuun, CEO of Indigenous Film Distribution, which is distributing iNumber Number in South Africa, said.
Marsh also directed Spud and Spud 2: The Madness Continues, among other films.