Malunde is a sweet and touching little South African movie, as feel-good as they come. Ian Roberts plays a crusty kind of Afrikaner of the old-South-African kind; he ends up on a cross-country journey in uneasy alliance with a black street child (Kagiso Mtetwa) on the run from some violent drug-dealers.
This is not going as “political” at all, rather just “human” and “universal”, but in fact it’s as didactic in its way as any struggle piece of the 1980s. It fits right into the approved national discourse on reconciliation, and ensures that its point is made as firmly as possible.
Malunde is conventional, perhaps over-long and sometimes laboured, but perhaps that’s the price of making a mainstream movie — Malunde Disneyfies the South African experience. That said, it is well made, with a nice touch of humour, and the cameos by South African stars such as Dolly Rathebe, Ken Gampu and Winston Ntshona are fun. The Roberts character is a bit broad, but Roberts does it convincingly, and Mtetwa shines.