Tsotsi [etc.]

Adapted and well-directed by Gavin Hood from an Athol Fugard novel, this film brings City of God from Rio to Johannesburg, following the shantytown fate of a teenage gang. The contrast between Soweto township and the modern city and suburb is well handled, but the story lacks a crucial dimension of plausibility. The first-time performance of Presley Chweneyagae as the young hoodlum denoted by the title carries the film over its unbelievable elements. He hijacks a car and shoots the frantic woman driver, only to find upon his getwaway her infant son in the back seat. The way his hardened gangsta heart melts through his incompetent caretaking, with flashbacks to his own stolen youth, reads credibly across his face, even when the baby’s failure to complain defeats credulity. Like the film itself, the character reveals a soft center under a tough exterior, sufficiently crowd-pleasing to win this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Film. (2005, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-70.)

Well, I’m enjoying my “Brother to Brother” film series, even if not many others are. Double features are too much for most people, and the familiarity of the films seems to be a drag instead of a draw. As with the last pairing of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? and Rain Man, I was more than content to see Raging Bull and American History X again and the juxtaposition worked on several levels. I still don’t rate Raging Bull as highly as many do -- it’s not even among Scorsese’s top 5 in my book but still an *8-* -- but it was interesting to compare and contrast two tales of masculine violence and ambiguous redemption, as well as the he-man performances of Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton. AHX was full of holes and confused in its implications, as you would expect from a film that was taken from its director and reedited before release, but still powerful scene by scene. The next neat pairing will be “Brothers at Work”: Big Night and Adaptation on August 13. Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.

Once more let me hail HBO’s Sunday night, with the third seasons of The Wire, Deadwood, and Entourage now being shown. Deadwood is must-see tv, but The Wire may be the best tv series ever. This third season will be on dvd next month, in preparation for a new fourth season to begin airing in September. It’s not a program you can undertake to watch casually -- you’ve got to start at the beginning and pay close attention at all times. The show’s creators do not insult your intelligence by explaining everything or underlining every point -- it will take you 5 or 6 episodes just to figure out who the characters are, but once you know them you are completely hooked by their multifaceted reality and the verisimilitude of the situations. It’s closer to a serialized novel by a contemporary Charles Dickens than to any tv series you’ve seen. An initially unintelligible or enigmatic scene in one episode may not pay off till several episodes later, when everything will click into place. You get the feeling that this is exactly how it is in the war between street corner drug dealers and the poe-leese in Baltimore, and the more you watch the more you realize how exactly it mirrors larger political and economic realities. The second season shifts it focus to longshoreman at the container port, bringing much information about an otherwise mysterious place that figures prominently in the news, what with the threat of terrorism and the whole uproar over Dubai Port World. The third season returns to the drug czars and their efforts to build their business and take it legit when useful, while the police brass scramble in their own political games and the front-line police try to center in on an elusive and ever-changing target. I couldn’t begin to untangle the various characters and plotlines, so I won’t even try.

I did have a chance, however, to talk recently with the sister-in-law of one of the show’s creators, for some behind the scenes glimpses of the collaboration between David Simon and Ed Burns (neither “Kookie” nor the Brothers McMullen guy.) This Edward Burns was a 20-year veteran of the Baltimore police department, who became a primary source for Sun reporter Simon’s book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, which led to a seven-season tv series (which I’ve never seen.) Then they collaborated on The Corner, a view of addiction from the inside that also became an HBO series, directed by Charles Dutton (which just went to the top of my Netflix queue.) And then The Wire broadened the story to the whole marketplace of illegal drugs. So the essential approach is not about entertaining, but about bringing the news in the most authentic way possible. You ought to be watching.