NOT playing at a theatre near you.

I love movies. And not just the movies themselves, but the whole movie going experience. I think it appeals to the side of me that secretly despises multi-tasking. After all, the dark theatre allows for no distractions (apart from the popcorn and M&M’s and gynormous Coke Light, obviously). I love it. In fact, many times, it doesn’t even matter if anything good is playing, I still want to go (especially here in South Africa, where a ticket is only sixteen Rand – that’s about two bucks).

So I go to a lot of movies. Enough to see the same commercials and previews over and over again. But that's to be expected when you go to the movies as much as I do. However, over the past four, maybe five, months I have seen one preview in particular enough to make me want to gouge out my eyeballs with the straw of my Coke Light.

It’s Hansie. And I hate him.

What’s that, you say? You’ve never heard of Hansie? I’m shocked. I thought for sure this movie would be an international blockbuster, rivalling Ironman and Harry Potter for certain.

No?

Oh, what a sheltered life you lead, so let me fill you in on what you’re missing. After all, I’m quite the Hansie expert, having seen the seemingly endless preview seven gajillion times.

Hansie was the captain of the South African cricket team in the years following apartheid. The preview makes it look like he was some kind of national hero, the golden boy leading the cricket team to greatness…that is, until he took thirty thousand US dollars to ‘throw’ an important match. That’s right; Hansie sold his soul to the devil for thirty grand. Doesn’t seem like a very clever hero to me. Anyway, the preview shows Hansie crying and apologizing to the country and the country shunning him, but then he dies (the preview doesn’t specify how…I think an airplane?) and his wife is crying and telling the country that he was “still Hansie” even though what he did was bad. It doesn’t say if the country forgives him or not.
I don’t really care.


Yes, I got all of this from a very long, very melodramatic preview, but a preview nonetheless.





Okay, I could write a whole other rant about previews that give too much away, but this one…this one is ridiculous. I guess it doesn't matter though, because every South African already knows the whole pathetic story anyway. And now, I too know way more than I ever wanted to about Hansie. So why would I need to see the film? There isn’t enough popcorn on the planet to make me sit through it. In fact, the mere sight of the movie poster makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth.

Yes, I realize my reaction is a bit extreme and perhaps irrational, but I’m not going to read too much into it. I’m not going to suggest that perhaps I’m directing my occasional frustration with living here in South Africa on a poor dead sports star. That would just be silly. And anyway, this isn’t that kind of post. No, this information is simply meant to broaden your knowledge of the international film circuit and perhaps impart a little South African sports trivia.

But if you want to share in my torment, you too can watch the trailer on the official Hansie Movie website. ARRGH!!!!