With the World Cup dawning upon us, it comes of timely convenience that Ralph Ziman’s Jerusalema: Gangster’s Paradise, a dramatic yet frank and personal account of South Africa’s criminal underworld is being released. We follow the story of how Lucky Kunene, a poor Sowetan boy, grew up to become the notorious hoodlum of Hillbrow. The portrayal of Kunene’s transition from raising funds for university to his entanglement in the world of crime is a charming and sharp account of the head-on collision between one man’s ambition and circumstance. To explain the story, a middle-aged imprisoned Kunene announces to a reporter, we’ll have to start from the beginning…

We’re introduced to a young Kunene (Jafta Mamabolo) and his best friend Zakes (Motlatsi Mahloko) being chased down a train carriage for selling sweets and perfume to commuters whilst running rings around the train security. This portion of the film not only sets the scene of the incompatibility of Kunene’s aspirations and his destitute living conditions but also adds humour which helps endear the audience to the protagonist and his sidekick as a couple of loveable rogues. When Kunene gets accepted into university without a scholarship, he becomes easily seduced by the lifestyle crime can buy and easy prey for Nazareth, the local gangster played potently by Jeffrey Sekele. At first, Kunene’s criminal CV contains little more than a few carjackings. Kunene and Zakes’ naivety during their first attempt provides another humorous interlude where we see the two desperate schoolboys resort to standing beneath a “hi-jacking hotspot” sign sporting AK-47s. The crimes soon take a less light-hearted form when a Heat-inspired heist results in Nazareth’s gang brutally killing all the security and policeman involved. A shocked Kunene and Zakes are reminded that crime is for life and are roped in to a robbery which goes awry when Nazareth is arrested. The two best friends only just manage to escape and vow to make a clean break in Hillbrow, Johannesburg.

Flash forward a couple of years and you’ve got a lot of swearing, drugs and gunfights ahead of you. Gone is the loveable harmlessness of the two younger characters replaced by a hardness resulting from the daily struggle to make a straight-laced living in the world’s crime capital. Ziman brilliantly creates the image of life in South Africa’s criminal underbelly, a world where even the taxi drivers carry guns and aren’t afraid to use them. Kunene’s attempt at clean-living through his taxi business soon goes pear-shaped when a rival company threaten him, beat him and steal his vehicle. It’s no surprise that Kunene stumbles back to his abode, a rundown tenement streaming with prostitutes and junkies, ironically called ‘Dunvista Mansions’ and tells Zakes (Ronnie Nyakale) to round up a gang. Kunene conjures up the idea of the ‘Hillbrow’s People’s Housing Trust’ which involves taking possession of tenants’ rent in exchange for human pest-control and negotiations with the landlords. Cue blaring music and violent interventions on part of his gang, which by the way includes Nazareth again after serving his jail sentence, and you’ve got yourself a gangster movie. His ruthless negotiations and demands with the ‘Whiteys’, the uncooperative and egocentric landlords leads to a very clever scheme of waiting until estates are eventually liquidated and available to buy at bargain price (along the lines of the true events that inspired the film). What is sometimes unclear is Kunene’s intentions between being the ‘African Robin Hood’ and getting rich for himself.

Kunene’s dodgy entrepreneurship inevitably catches the eye of Detective Blakkie Swart, a harsh character played by District 9’s (2009) Robert Hobbs who develops a cat and mouse dynamic with Kunene but this relationship is regrettably never explored to its potential. Detective Swart is only the start of Kunene’s strife as by cleaning up these houses, Kunene has started to step on some people’s toes, namely Nigerian drug-dealer Tony Ngu (Malusi Skenjana) who thrives on the heroin and cocaine trade. The shifting dynamic between Nazareth and Kunene is another interesting addition to this story of friendship and betrayal. When Nazareth’s drug addiction becomes an issue, the film moves towards its inevitable climax where Kunene must face the enemies he has made along his route to the top. The performance by Shelley Meskin who plays Kunene’s white and wealthy love interest adds another source of tension between Kunene and his gang, a storyline that at times seems as unnatural as the chemistry between the two.

The first section of the film, told through the story of a young Kunene (played charismatically by Jafta Mamabolo) is where the film really gets it all right. There are elements of comedy and romance which seem to get lost in the complicated storylines to come. Although a believable and absorbing account, the later part of the film tends to deny us the development of certain characters and relationships which could have substituted some of the scenes showing many forced evictions (think pest-control but between bad tenants and gangsters). However, the lack of these character developments only leaves more room for understanding Lucky Kunene and how his surprisingly moral intentions lead him into sticky situations with both the law and the criminal world. Ziman’s cinematography shows off the contrasting backdrops from the slums to the mansions which reflect the social inequality in South Africa. Despite a few predictable moments, Jerusalema: Gangster’s Paradise overcomes the rags-to-riches cliché typical of the genre by showing a less than linear journey of a somewhat reluctant gangster.