Tsotsi (R, 2006)

Set in Soweto, South Africa, this Oscar-winner centers on 19-year-old Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) who deals drugs, steals, and scavenges to get by. After he and his crew commit a robbery and murder, Tsotsi gets into a brutal fight with one of his friends, then runs off and carjacks a BMW only to discover an infant in the back seat. Abruptly, Tsotsi has new options. He decides to keep the baby, leave the car, and head home. He cares for the infant, but leaves it in a bag under his bed while he goes out cruising for new trouble. When he returns to find the filthy baby covered in ants, Tsotsi sees himself in the infant, underlined by flashbacks to his tragic childhood. Tsotsi forces a new mother to breastfeed his new charge, then tries to give the baby away to homeless children on the outskirts of town, where he used to live. As he holds out the baby in a bag, this next scrawny generation stares at Tsotsi as if he's crazy. They can't imagine caring for anyone else, just as he can't. At last, he does figure out a decent way to cope; he finds himself, after an impossibly hard life.

Last year's Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, TSOTSI is a brutal, affecting film about a young man's turn from violence to almost incomprehensible generosity. Gavin Hood's film takes place in a harsh, amorphous now -- the presence of AIDS marks a change from the film's source, Athol Fugard's novel, which was set in the 1950s (published in 1980). This shift underlines the persistence of risks in the South African townships: the particular danger may shift, but hopelessness and fury go on.

Studio: Miramax
Director: Gavin Hood
Cast: Kenneth Nkosi, Presley Chweneyagae, Terry Pheto
Genre: Drama
Run time: 94 minutes
Theatrical release: March 24, 2006
DVD release: July 18, 2006
MPAA Rating: R
MPAA explanation: for language and some strong violent content.