I drove down to Johannesburg on Thursday evening to join Cent for the movie premiere of The Unforgiving, arguably South Africa's first proper thriller.

After running around trying to find the cinemas (Andreas and I haven't been to Monte Casino for quite a while, so we got a bit lost) we were received at the invitee table and we got our tickets. On entry we were informed that the movie only starts at eight o' clock so I attacked the finger food and we grabbed ourselves some beers.



Andreas and I at the entrance

Andreas took some photo's and introduced me to Ryan Macquet, one of the lead roles in the film as well as an avid gamer; most of you would know him by his nickname “Ach3”. He then introduced us to the rest of his cast and his director, Alastair Orr, who's pretty young!

We then made our way into the Cinema and after a few formalities the movie started.

I've been sitting all afternoon trying to find a way to explain my feelings on this movie to you, so I decided to break my review in two halves. One half for what I liked, and the other half for what I did not like and then finally, a summary and a score.

The movie deals with a girl who's car breaks down next to the road in the middle of nowhere, when she's suddenly attacked...

Bad news usually comes first but I will start with what I liked about this movie :

The whole package of the film was just solid. The camera work was exceptionally original, the lighting, music, makeup and cinematography was spot-on. It felt like I was watching a American studio film. Nothing in the movie, except for the obvious setting and accents could have indicated that it was a local film.

At first I was skeptical about certain reactions from Macquet at the start of the film, but realised that it coincided nicely with his character, Rex Dobson and the plot, which made total sense afterward. His quirky attitude and typical white tendency was very familiar and had me put myself in his shoes for most of the movie.

I also have to mention Claire Opperman who plays the role of Alice Edmunds, her scenes in the question room were brilliant and her performance over all was absolutely gripping.

The production was of high quality and managed to keep my attention from start to finish, not a dull moment!


Andreas, Michael, Ryan, Craig and I, respectively.

The not-so-good :

The only problem I had with the movie was that it felt rushed in a way. I was confused throughout the film and there were parts where I just couldn't keep up and lost the rhythm completely. The plot jumps back and forth from different scenes and twists which took me almost 10 minutes after the movie to figure out.

The plot was also somewhat confusing and left me with lots of questions and the characters, while played very well, were neglected when it came to their background and their development throughout the movie.

What I'm really trying to say :

I've never really been a fan of this genre and usually enjoy the slow dramatic type films. This film, however, is a very fast paced and action packed movie without too much dragging conversation and fits the bill perfectly when it comes to thrillers. Its brutal, demeaning and unpredictable. If you're a fan of the Saw series or any thriller for that matter, but don't like the obvious cliche's that Hollywood spoon-feeds us or just a fresh new South African production that steers away from the overpopulated Rainbow-Nation driven comedies, then go watch this, you will most definitely enjoy it.

SCORE : 7.8/10

Director :

Alastair Orr

Cast :

Ryan Macquet
Claire Opperman
Michael Thompson
Craig Hawks



Ryan pointing to the Heat's Top 10 list of movies to see this month, with the unforgiving coming in at number 10 and also being the only local movie there.

Starts in Cinemas today, 20 August 2010.

You can find the movie media kit here and the official website here.

Our own gallery of the premiere.