Truly Dreadful Film

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Cape Town has a wealth of characters and cross plots that requires you to pay attention. The seemingly divergent stories all come together for an exciting finale. The characters are well drawn and detailed, right down to the background actors. Cape Town itself is a major visual draw card and I loved the quick shots around the cape that open each scene. Worth watching.

An enjoyable "who-done-it" series with a range of plots and sub plots to make the story interesting. Pity about the very poor South African accents by Boris Kodjoe (Santus Snook) and Trond Espen Seim (Mat Joubert). Often I could not understand what they were saying. South Africa is such a melting pot of accents, they could have easily woven their true accents into the ancestor of their characters leaving the audience with a more authentic experience. The local talent was most enjoyable and authentic in the range of characters found in South Africa. Deon Meyer writes entertaining stories that depict many aspects of South African life.

I'm a fan of Trond Espen Seim and really like his performance as Mat Joubert. The frustration and his inner conflict are very well acted and make me believe the pain he is going through. I've seen him in Varg Veum and was caught by his acting right away. He is even better now in Cape Town! I also really enjoyed the performance of Boris Kodjoe, who I haven't seen in any film or TV series before. The uneven couple works quite good. Sanctus Snook, who is an elite cop, very straight and correct, on the one side and Mat Joubert, who has a drinking problem, is overweight and not so correct, on the other side. The series is a well known and proved crime concept and even though the first episode is a bit slow, I got hooked in the second episode. The cliffhanger at the end of that second episode made me jump right into the next one and enjoy the rest of the series. All in all, a good and entertaining crime show with suspense, action and some funny lines.

I so wanted to enjoy this "police drama" or mini series, i still don't know how to classify. After watching each episode of this 6 part drama countless times because it is so good at inducing sleep, I finally deduced what i think it was supposed to be about.2 detective, 1 has a drink problem, his wife was murdered/ suicide??? and his sister raped. 2nd detective has a brother out on probation who has a little daughter. After that is a haze of girls being murdered, German stasi, south African white gangsters and a female therapist and something about mind control. This drama did cure my insomnia because i would start watching and episode and 10 minutes later i am asleep. It is slow, predictable, contrived and downright boring that if it wasn't so good at inducing sleep i would have abandoned it by the second episode.Maybe it is directed at white south africans or those from Cape town? Maybe it is dubbed from Afrikaans and a lot, especially the humour has been lost in translation? There is a big finale in the 6th episode when all is revealed. I thank this series for giving me a few good nights.