Paradise Stop... The Review

Most reviews that I have come across on the net for this movie were done either by people who were invited to the premiere and were therefore expected to critic, or people who are in the film industry and are familiar with noticing the backdrop of what what against the what what of slapstick comedy. What I’m about to give is a view from just a member of the public who paid a ticket and went to see the movie – I will speak on this from a man-on-the-street perspective and I hope it will give the producers a picture of what an ordinary member of their audience thinks of their work. And like my disclaimer says... it is “everything just as it comes to my head”.

I watched Paradise Stop with a very clear heart. I didn’t know what to expect and for some reason I made sure I didn’t read any reviews before I went to see it. Even that snippet that’s on their press release and is the first paragraph of everything that’s written about the movie and will probably be on the back of the DVD cover – that snippet that reads something like...based in a remote town of Limpopo.. blah blah blah.. two friends on opposite sides of the law –////yawn/// Even that snippet, I didn’t read all of it before I went to watch the movie. It is so everywhere and said by every critic that it almost sounds like Intersexions’ five finger statement.

Anyway, focus!

So I really didn’t know what to expect. And shem, I was so impressed. When Jerusalema was more action and less comedy, and White Wedding was more comedy, less action, Paradise Stop found a fair balance of the two.

Yes... I will leave the technical review to tha-bang and other film-geekos. I just wanna comment on the storyline.

We meet Potso Mogopudi.


The story is basically centered around this man. He is a public servant – like many South Africans who earn a minimum salary and have got families to support. He wants to do things right, do the job he gets paid to do and he’s passionate about saving the world from pesty characters. He worked in some top police force in Joburg but because he doesn’t cut corners and he doesn’t believe in breaking the law that he is supposed to be upholding, he gets into trouble with his bosses who make extra earnings from crime. It turns out his bosses work for the country’s heist king, Jack Mabaso.

Potso’s family is threatened and he is forced to move to a small place in Limpopo and work in a very small police station ( i say small coz it looked like it had only one constable – minimal staff, minimal resources, minimal security) even minimal brains too as we are introduced to maAgnes, the Station Commander. She is so frustrated by ‘the system’ so that she’s taking it out on everyone else.

Then enters Potso’s wife, Moshidi


Apparently she was a simunye television presenter and obviously she had to move from the big city as the husband was forcely transferred. But the husband hasn’t told her that her life was in danger and they had to move coz he needed to protect them. (her and the daughter). She’s acting like such a big fish in a smallest of ponds. And you just see ‘bimbo’ when you look at her.

Turns out Potso’s parents were never happy with the marriage but he did it anyway. Yes, sometimes it is good to listen to our parents, they are right most times. (ive learnt that the hard way in recent times). Anyway, this Moshidi woman does not support her husband in any way. She is soooo stupid the best thing she does is cheat with the mayor. She does this all because the mayor owns a convertible something and she can cruise the small town/village with him and look like she has it together. She doesn’t realise that, at the end of the day, she is still just a cop’s wife. A cop who is working his butt off to put food on her table and a cop whose career has had to be redirected because of her...and a cop who desperately needs her wifely support.

Anyway, then there's Potso’s friend, Ben Khumalo


Also lived in Joburg at one point and also moved to the small place because he was probably wanting a change of scenery. He is fat, has a fat wife named Goodness and fat children and they also seem to be living in a phat neighbourhood too with a white neighbour who seems to be bonking his wife. I like the way the writers leave that to us to just laugh about and figure out. It’s so crazy the way Johnny the neighbour comments on what a good woman Goodness is, and the camera captures the look on Ben’s face.

One of my favourite scenes is when Goodness says the quotation for the kitchen is R300 000 and Ben snaps and screams...”but what is wrong with the kitchen that we have? You have made good food in that kitchen – food so good that I’m getting fat... so good that the children are getting fat – so good that you are so fat!” LOL.


Yha... Ben was apparently brilliant at doing heists down in Joburg and as he ran away from the big king, Jack Mabaso, he has since started his own little operation in Limpopo. He runs a truck stop called Paradise and it is not so far from the borders. All trucks sort of pass there for a pitstop and that is where his little operation mainly operates with some cronies and some clumsy prostitutes.

When Jack Mabaso follows him to perform a “final task’ for him, he somehow ends up involving Potso in it to the point that when Jack kidnaps his family, he takes Potso’s child too.

Then you see what happens to Potso... he has done his best to protect his family from Jack Mabaso by moving to the remote town – only for some stupid Khumalo to endanger them anyway.

So yha, I think Paradise Stop is a good portrayal of a normal South African citizen whom all he’s trying to do is be good at his job, do things right and just make an honest living. Unfortunately the system does not accommodate such people. The system as in the way things are done – be it in the normal day-to-day running of life, the way rules have been written, and just generally the overall human way of thinking.

I say this because here is a man who does his best to feed his family while he uplifts the morale of society. For this he lives in an average house, drives an average car, is abused by his wife – emotionally and physically (physically in a way that she stays away from their matrimonial bed and gives nunu to the mayor instead)lol

What’s worse... when Potso has an encounter with a woman, he has a glass of wine and the kiss doesn’t go any far as he quickly remembers that he is married and acts like it. (And of course because it’s Rapulana, he just had to make sure he kisses that woman before he remembered his wedding vows. And the role is played by Maduvha, Chief Azwindwini’s third wife. heheh)


Moving on, I felt that Potso Mogopudi represents so many men in society who just don’t have anybody to stand for them. He is choked by the system and he thinks he has run out of options. He is at the brink of just giving up, and living each day as it comes like all the other many public servants who are operating at grassroots level. These are your nurses, teachers and policemen who are playing some of society’s most important roles but are treated like kak, which then leads to them delivering a kak service. #yesIsaidIt

That also includes the clerks in municipal offices who have to spend their days typing up tender documents for the same people over and over again. (believe me, i don’t even know if its the clerks that type these, im just saying)

Anyway, I really enjoyed watching Paradise Stop and I was happy about the emotional cloud that they painted over Potso’s character – one could almost feel his pain when the wife took the expensive perfume that he bought her and closed the bathroom door on his face as she said “Im tired, Potso”

My general comments are that:

Characters like the ones played by Keketso Semoko and Sonia Sedibe are more like just an extension of what they are doing on the small screen. Moshidi isn’t much different from Ntombi of Generations and the Station Commander is just MaAgnes in a police uniform. And inanycase, she runs the police station just the way she run The Rec in Isidingo. lol

The "one week earlier" approach I suggest that they dont do in their next movie.

Vusi Kunene’s character, The General, is just Jack Mabaso raised from the dead. I still think the man is hot, though.

I just lahv Nick Boraine and his stick legs. He plays the Johnny character so brilliantly. One of my favourite scenes is after they had captured the Congolese guys and he throws the guy a punch – he goes for it, hey...one of those punches when you end up on top of the person you are punching. Totally hilarious! And given that it’s Nick that’s doing it just makes it worse. The classic one is when van that Jack Mabaso kidnapped the family in is opened and Goodness goes for Johnny instead of her husband. I still love the fact that the writers left that in the back of the storyline – they don’t end up showing Ben moering Johnny for chowing his wife – it will just remain at the back of our heads.


Another person definitely worth mentioning is the constable, played by  Rea Rangaka. He really does well at the character, shem. The way he drives that SAPS van, the way he speaks to the Station Commander, the works – the guy should be recognised.


Have you guys watched Paradise Stop and what did you think?

Nobody is paying me to say this but I will say it anyway...

If you haven’t seen Paradise Stop yet, please go see it or wait to buy the DVD. The guy at the corner is probably selling it for R15 already but please do not be tempted. And never mind the man at the corner, a Mark Zuckerberg wannabe is already offering to put it in your memory stick – please tell him you are not interested. It says somewhere that this film did R1.2mil at box office in two weeks – lets support our brothers, bantu. If you are going to pay to watch Big Momma:like father like son only coz you want to see that bloomer in its original size, I don’t know why you would decide to pirate the sweat of some hardworking people.

Paradise Stop is really worth that movie ticket, shem, and im not only saying this coz of the way I feel about Rapulana. (cough-cough) He is a good actor, by the way. I do feel sometimes that he kinds of over-exerts his acting (like when he was  giving Ben the ring he had found in the truck...


But he is good yena, shem.

I shall stay away from raising the stereotypical tribalist voice in me that just screamed.. heheh.. and the prominent one just had to be Khumalo while the layman is a Segopudi – what an ironic coincidence!

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