“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Hood’s adaptation of the brutal South African crime novel Tsotsi by eminent South African novelist and playwright Athol Fugard (who also wrote the film’s screenplay) is about a seemingly soulless young thug (Presley Chweneyagae) whose predatory lifestyle is upended by an unexpected intruder—a helpless baby—who awakens in him an all-but-extinguished spark of compassion. How Tsotsi responds to this empathic link is often as horrifying as it is humanizing, yet the film walks a razor’s edge between hope and despair right to the end. With a final image of transcendent rightness, the film offers an ending we may dare to hope is also a beginning.
—Steven D. Greydanus