TK (Pallance Dladla) is a handsome Casanova who seems to have got this far in life by using his dick as a compass. It points in the direction of a woman, and he pursues. These playboy strategies have earned him the drooling admiration of his friends. When we first meet the young man, he emerges from what appears to be the broom closet of the local tavern, where he’s just finished up a spirited episode of ménage a trois. But then, a mesmeric femme fatale enters the picture, resisting all of his charms. Her name is Skiets (Thishiwe Ziqubu) and she’s playing “hard to get”, a phrase which happily doubles up as a plot synopsis for this almost unfollowable film. To get something is to acquire it, to come into possession of it – and for TK, a woman is something to get got. If the lady doth protest too much, it simply means the challenge is on. When Skiets, for example, leaves him buck naked on the street after their first date, he doesn’t think, “abort mission because I just got played by a sociopath”, but rather something along the lines of: girl, I would literally abandon my whole life for the chance to finish what we started.
Don’t be fooled, though. This is not a love story, in spite of what TK himself seems to think. This is a story of possession, a fantasy of male insecurities – even the “empowered” female lead seems to hate her own gender, saying things like “I don’t sleep with pussies” and “a real man provides”. Or when detailing the daddy issues that made her the volatile person she is: “He ran away like a bitch.” If this is feminism, it’s one that too quickly succumbs to the patriarchal vision.
The antagonist is the gangster Mugza, and I’ve got to pause the critique to pay homage to Israel Makoe, who plays him with thuggish charisma. You can’t go wrong with Makoe. It’s all in the sneer and the vulture-like hunch. He holds his face with an almost Clint Eastwood tightness of the jaw. It’s pure deadpan comedy. But when we are introduced to Mugza, he’s busy beating the daylights out of a guy who dared to wash his rocket-red 3-Series for a couple of extra bucks. When TK intervenes, he is quietly roared at. “Would you touch my ass?” Mugza seethes. “Would you touch my balls?” The homophobic point is clear – the car is an extension of his genitals. So, we get a sense that women are just playthings or commodities in this universe, a suspicion confirmed when Mugza is seen hanging out with Skiets, and asks TK, “Can’t you see who’s driving?”
Some bar-brawling ensues and suddenly, everything gets swallowed in a roar of dubstep and misogyny. TK and Skiets steal Mugza’s car and burst off into the distance. Luring him away from his entire life with the promise of sex, Skiets seduces TK into the idea that they should become robbers in Joburg. Well, that escalated quickly. Once again, we are in the predictable realms of South African cinema, where the thug-life of violence and crime is glorified and turned into an adventure of masculinity (the film is thronged with symbols of castration and TK’s existential quest is to prove to Skiets that he is a real man). Hard to Get becomes a super-slick and superficial riff on the Bonnie & Clyde-style crime caper. It has the restlessness and agitation of a music video, constantly outsourcing emotional atmosphere to a blare of dubstep or endless parade of slow-mo. When the pair get up to some passionate reverse cowgirl in the backseat of a car, the camera hovers just long enough to take in the absurdity of faces caught at the point of climax.
Hard to Get is a commercial product and a morale-boost for our industry’s capabilities. But it’s also an admission that we can make movies just as hollow as Hollywood. Beyond the romantic charm of its lead characters, this is another tired sigh of clichés and an ode to formulaic film-making we have been perfecting for too long.