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Best movie of this year hands down!

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

In My Country takes a hugely interesting, complex topic - South Africa's truth and reconciliation commission, and pushes it into the background of a rather formulaic and morally dubious love story between two reporters. The characterisation of the both Afrikaaners and the black South Africans is wooden and at times one-dimensional. The word Ubuntu is bandied around but I didn't think the film explored the concept as well as it could have done, I certainly didn't come away from it with a feeling I understood the idea. To my mind Red Dust is the better film, with a much greater depth in terms of plot.On the plus side the score of In My Country is very good, senzenina is a haunting theme throughout the whole film, the ambiguity over whether it refers to the actions of the apartheid government or the release of so many of those who committed those acts is very interesting.

I found this movie interesting because I realized just how ignorant I am of South Africa's recent history. The movie seemed to give a fairly balanced retrospective of what went on during apartheid. That is, it showed many sides. I certainly liked the focus on forgiveness.But as a film it was very mediocre. The cast could have done so much more. I found the characters to be very flat most of the time. When they did get emotional, it seemed forced. I couldn't really sympathize with any character.It was a bit like watching a comedian who is telling good jokes with poor timing, if you know what I mean.

I am not a big fan of romances, but in this case I gave it a try because of director John Boorman ["Excalibur," "The Emerald Forest," "Hope & Glory, "Deliverance"] and actors Samuel L. Jackson ["Coach Carter," "Star Wars: Episodes 2 & 3," "The Red Violin"] and Juliette Binoche ["Chocolat," "The English Patient," and the 1992 remake of "Wuthering Heights"].This film was in the better half of Boorman's, while Jackson and Binoche gave top-notch performances. The supporting role of Dumi, played by Menzi Ngubane was excellent, as he acted both as foil and antagonist between the couple.I think the weakest elements of this film are in screenwriter Ann Peacock's dialogue and in the construction of the Anna Malan and brother Boetie characters. The first for taking on just a little too much burden of responsibility, especially in one somewhat uncharacteristic scene at one of the hearings with a particularly gory testimony, and the latter for being incomplete when a key development occurs that should have played more into the storyline and into Anna's reactions.From what I've heard about the book by Antje Krog, I can understand why anyone who had read it before seeing this movie might be disappointed, but it was certainly clear to me by the marketing that this was a romance and not a cinematic litany of the horrors of Apartheid.Given the turbulent background of Apartheid and the South African Truth & Reconciliation Commission proceedings, along with other clues, I was also expecting this to be an adversaries-fall-in-love story, which is the type of romance that I like the most. The collective incidents which drive Anna and Langston together are neither contrived or turgid, and fall comfortably in between, especially because they are juxtaposed with events based in reality. There is one most significant turn at one of the hearings, which, given it is true, would bring any two adversaries together, in peace if not in love.I don't want to give away anything about the extent of their romance, except to say that how it ended up was a pleasant surprise and quite satisfactory. I wish I could recommend two other good romances that end so similarly and satisfactorily, but I would give away the surprise.This film is certainly worth a rental or two, worth showing to friends, but I suppose the disturbing nature of the background events might keep some people from buying it for their home library, but if you bought a copy of "American History X," I think you might want to buy this one.

This movie is so different then most of the mainstream movies in America. Majority of popular, most money making movies concentrate on revenge (the superhero justified in his violence by "payback" attitude. Now, In "In my country" is not the revenge but the power of forgiveness which is explored. The movie flows easy, no false pretenses, no Disney "simplifications", just a nation of individuals trying to find a way to forgive and to live together after horrible past. I wish that more nations try the principles outlined in the movie--maybe then we would have way less of "race cleansing" wars. Overall the movie is beautiful and worth seeing.