“Nothing for Mahala” is one of those movies that you really want to love. It has the loveable Thapelo Mokoena (the guy from the beer ads and once upon a time ‘Generations” alumni) as it’s lead, Rolie Nikiwe as it’s director (dude has been cutting his teeth on drama's like Tsha Tsha and Intersexions and NGO-funded films for years and deserves a major break) but it just does not jell for me.
Pitched as a lighthearted comedy with a heart, this Heartlines production - which moves away from the tone of the initial Heartlines series that brought us heartbreaking drama’s to do with morals - is a missed opportunity for me. It's not funny, it comes across very superficial, an overstretched TV episode made into a movie. Maybe there's a market out there for it? Only time will tell.
Well, if you don’t know the story ... its basically about young man “X” trying to make it in big, bad Jozi, who has to spend some time with a grumpy old man (the Afrikaans legend Marius Weyers as Hendrik) at a retirement home, for his sins. It's supposed to put him on a journey of renewal as part of his community service.
The issue is, you never really understand why is it so important for X to be a big man. What's driving this ambition? What’s feeding the need for him to look successful and be successful to the extent that he takes such risks that end him up in community service?
It’s almost treated as if, nah he's a black dude and they all want to be BEE but not given the rationale for the character that will make a connection with the audience. The whole wise old man vs crass young black man, with the young man learning a lot from the white man is a bit patronising at times. Although the film tries to offset it, the dynamic of the duo feels way one-sided.
What Rolie Nikiwe does well is to give us very nice panoramic shots of Johannesburg and move the pace quite quickly in the first 15 minutes, the look of the film is not too bad but everything else is messy-messy-messy. From the wall-to-wall music score that does not always work to the grumpy relationship between Thapelo’s character and the old man Hendrik - which is not given enough weight, screentime or pathos but is supposed to move the movie forward and make us care about the two and eventually the retirement home.
The performances are cool, from Thapelo to Shoki as X’s nemisis to Jamie Bartlett as the devil-may-care big boss and Marius - they're all great actors but the issue is the material they're working with.
Darrel Bristow-Bovey's script is weak man, it lacks build and momentum - by the time it gets any form of dramatic tension it's two thirds into the movie and by this time you still don’t have a true grasp for all these old folks or the characters we're supposed to be cheering on.
For a comedy, the jokes aren’t that good, most are dead in the water or just too slapstick - hey I appreciate good physical comedy but here it fell flat for me.
The film actually has only two genuinely laugh out loud moments. The so-called comedy actually ends up undercutting all its own drama and by the end of the film I really didn’t care about the old folks 'cause I never really got to know them or understand any of their quirks.
The Heartlines series really worked well as drama's - I don’t know who decided that “Hey, let's go light with this one”. The film felt hollow to me - which is a shame 'cause it’s trying to teach “the BEE generation” that money is not everything but it's got to show instead that a good story is better than flashy cuts, pop music and loveable cast - which is the issue with “Nothing for Mahala” - it’s not a well written story.
The story lacks bite, it lacks ambition and decides to play it safe at every turn - if this was not released in the same year as Blitzpatrollie and Of Good Report maybe it could have been forgiven but the game has been elevated and no-one told the writers at “Nothing for Mahala”.