This new drama, directed by Steven Silver, who is best known for directing documentaries, is based on a true story of photojournalists capturing images of brutality in South Africa in the 1990’s. It is captivating and proves Mr. Silver’s immense talent while demonstrating that Ryan Phillippe is an actor with more talent than he is given credit for.
The film raises a number of interesting questions that most people never consider surrounding the creation of wartime images and is particularly timely in lieu of the recent death of Tim Hetherington, one of the directors of the film “Restrepo.” In order to capture these images of terrible cruelty, photographers must be witness to terrible cruelty, a topic that the film covers brilliantly, bringing the audience into the middle of the “bang bang” that gives the film its name, and showing the shell shock that haunts many of these men as they cannot shake the images from their memories after returning from the field.
The film also addressses the questions of ethics that surround these photographs once they have been made. Should newspapers run pictures of graphic violence? Can a photographer take a photograph of a starving girl just before she is eaten by a vulture without intervening? Does a photo-journalist have the responsibility to collaborate with the police if he was the witness to a crime because he was given access to the crime by the criminal?
Other questions are addressed more obliquely, such as the race of these photographers in comparison to the race of the people they photographed and the commercial aspects of the industry. Although, these topics were addressed with an open-endedness, I feel the film acted responsibly to include them.
I enjoyed watching this film very much, as it kept my attention fixed with a combination of suspense and action that rarely accompany intellectual substance in cinema. This is one of those rare occasions where the film has both, keeping me on the edge of my seat as I watched, but leaving me with lingering thoughts for days after the credits rolled.
Showing the changing tides in film distribution, Tribeca Films is distributing this film via video on demand for cable and through iTunes, even as it continues to play the festival circuit. That means you could download it right now, even as audiences continue to buy tickets to see the film in festivals like CPH PIX and Tribeca.
