Winner of 2006’s Best Foreign Film Oscar, this thug-rehabilitation movie goes to exaggerated lengths to redeem its criminal antihero. Presley Chweneyagae gives a riveting performance as a thieving teen who steals a woman’s car without realizing her baby is in the back seat. A crisis of conscience ensues, as well as a crash course in diaper-changing. Tsotsi pulses with life on the edge, from the dangerous cacophony of the Johannesburg ghetto in which Tsotsi lives to the vibrating South African music on the soundtrack. Yet such harsh reality stands in stark contrast to the infant gimmick, with its unfortunate echoes of Three Men and a Baby.
