Cry, the Beloved Country (Darrell James Roodt)

Rating: 2.0

I had an opportunity to see a test screening of CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY 
last summer; as soon as the movie started, I felt a need to urinate, and 
after one reel, I decided that I was too bored to justify the agony of 
bladder control for another 100 minutes, so I walked out.  I was 
surprised, then, when the film was reasonably well-reviewed upon its 
release some six months later, and felt obligated to give it another 
chance.  And, truth be told, subsequent reels are a bit less tedious than 
the first one...but not much.  Some movies reveal their essential nature 
from frame one, and I could tell from the "Isn't Africa Beautiful?!" 
opening credits sequence, with its blandly picturesque shots of a little 
girl running joyously through the carefully-framed countryside, exactly 
what kind of film this was going to be: self-important, humorless, 
obvious, sentimental, and "uplifting."  Sometimes, first impressions are 
correct.