The ensuing chaos leads him down the rabbit hole of a conspiracy at the highest levels of government.
Suffering from severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and unable to return to work, ex-fireman Theo Abrahams (Jarrid Geduld) turns to alcohol and becomes increasingly frustrated and volatile.
Theo’s world is rocked when his journalist wife Angela (Nicole Fortuin) is murdered – and he is the prime suspect. He soon finds himself on the run from the police for a murder he is positive he didn’t commit. But was he framed? Or did one of his violent nightmares cause him to do something he didn’t mean to do?
As he is hunted by General Alan Shard (Andre Jacobs) and Detective Captain Rene Williamson (Gail Mabalane), connections are revealed between his past, the origin of his PTSD, the murder of his wife, and a government conspiracy with chilling implications.
(Check out the Trailer Video further below in this article)
Moving from one thrilling action sequence to the next as Theo literally fights for his life, Geduld’s great performance makes Theo believably flawed and human.
We at Bruinou.com raved about Geduld's portrayal of Abie Pakies in ELLEN - Die Ellen Pakkies Storie that included an extreme body transformation to look like an addict and the experts concurred when he received the Award for the Best Actor at the 2018 kykNET Silwerskerm Film Festival along with winning the SAFTA Golden Horn Award for the Best Actor in a Feature Film at the 2019 South African Film and Television Awards.
Geduld clearly puts his all into his characters and for this new action-packed film the star decided to do all of his own stunts; a mission he prepared for by spending three months training with stunt masters Vernon Willemse and Grant Powell (Fury Road, Tomb Raider).
The SAFTA-award winner’s confident physical performance definitely makes for a very credible action hero.
The well-portrayed characters of co-stars Andre Jacobs as low-key cold and to-the-point General Alan Shard and Gail Mabalane as the analytical and more nuanced Captain Rene Williamson will keep the audience guessing whether these officers of the law are just a step behind Theo finding the truth and will also eventually see the wood for the trees or if they are also caught up in the conspiracy.
Also notable for their support cast roles are Nicole Fortuin, who recently starred in Late Bloomer, as the long-suffering wife Angela Abrahams trying to support Theo through the turmoil of his PTSD; Abduragmaan Adams as the convincingly paranoid off-the-grid whistle-blower Sam Isaacs with Kay Smith making a fairly brief plot-building appearance as his hacker contact; and Susan Danford who plays Dr. Gillian Tunbridge, the psychiatrist treating Theo Abrahams.
Being South African writer-director Travis Taute’s directorial debut on a full-length feature film, INDEMNITY had its overseas premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Canada last year and already released in the USA earlier this year, premiered in South Africa at the 10th annual kykNET Silwerskermfees, where the film received 12 nominations.
The film will release in South Africa on 13 May 2022.
Whether staging fights in the close confines of an elevator or a spacious abandoned factory, Taute – co-writer of Nosipho Dumisa’s award-winning Number 37 and the Netflix series Blood & Water – knows how to grab viewers’ attention. Favouring real stunts over CGI, he truly put the team through their paces with some serious challenges.
“I wanted to make an action film, and I was very fortunate that my producers bought into that vision and ambition,” explains Taute. “However, I wanted to combine that with a film that had a heart that was driven by a character. A story about a man who has this trauma and then weaves in the action sequences to his emotional journey.”
PTSD is at the heart of the story and on extensively exploring this issue in the film, the writer-director says: “When it comes to issues regarding mental health, there is such a terrible stigma attached to it. It’s considered weak. This inability for men to converse in a constructive way about not being well emotionally and psychologically and being supported in that conversation; this is an important and powerful issue and I wanted to speak about it in his film.”
The only real criticism we have about Indemnity is that, though “the emotional journey” did not add to the feeling that movie was perhaps a bit dragged out, the plot becomes kinda thick with more layers towards the end, some of which the story didn’t really need for it to make sense and be believable.
Hulle het die pap dalk net so ‘n klein-klein bietjie te duk aangemaak; maar hy gaan nogaltyd lekker af.
Mind you, when it comes to plots that are too thick, I have seen much worse come from hyped-up Hollywood action movies with big-name action stars.
The fast-paced action and all of the intrigue in Indemnity thankfully make up for that in a way that still puts it miles ahead of any other South African action films; though admittedly there aren’t many.
INDEMNITY is definitive confirmation of Taute’s talent as an action director and this is what he had to say: “In South Africa there has been a limit to the kinds of films we can produce. We wanted to do something that could stand up with all the rest of the international titles; something to move the needle in terms of the perception of what kinds of films can come out of South Africa. The process was amazing, and I can’t wait for the next one,”
We at Bruinou.com are excited about all the different locally-uncharted directions that South African Films are taking.
When we say that South African films by People of Colour should be about "telling our own stories" we cannot only mean that we should tell our stories that revolve around our own socio-economic and socio-political issues or of our own cultural nuances; it is all good and well to do that, but we should also exclaim our own voices in spinning yarns that are a flight of fantasy and can enthral any audience anywhere in the world.
INDEMNITY is further proof that our filmmakers can tell fast-paced riveting tales of which the remote plausibility that these bizarre events could really happen to someone resonates with viewers, no matter where in the world they are.
Our Verdict: Indemnity Redefines SA Action Thrillers. Can We Get a Sequel?
WATCH TRAILER
INDEMNITY was produced by Gambit Films, in association with M-Net Films, Marche Media, the National Film and Video Foundation and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition.
It is locally distributed by Filmfinity Pty (Ltd) and will be released in South African cinemas on 13 May 2022.