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# ‘Tsotsi’ role proves worthy of its Oscar buzz accolades
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/tsotsi-role-proves-worthy-of-its-oscar-buzz-accolades/
- Published: 2006-02-24T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T17:18:12.000Z
- Author: Dan Dunn
- Tags: Entertainment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

Emotional honesty on a level seldom found in Hollywood-produced flicks about thug life is the hallmark of writer-director Gavin Hood’s gripping adaptation of Athol Fugard’s 1960 novel. A worthy Oscar nominee in the Best Foreign Language Film category, “Tsotsi” plays out over a violent six-day period in which a young gang leader from a shantytown on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa, comes of age while confronting his troubled past. Tsotsi (South African newcomer Presley Chweneyagae), whose adopted name means “gangster” in the ghetto vernacular, was orphaned at a young age and his feral existence has turned him into a fearsome character. Following a bloody confrontation with one of his minions (Mothusi Magano) a distraught Tsotsi wanders into an affluent suburb, where an impromptu carjacking leaves him with an innocent woman’s blood on his hands and her infant in his care. Hood adroitly parallels the softening of his antihero with the mounting tension as the search for the kidnapped child intensifies. Stellar performances all around, particularly Chweneyagae and the beautiful Terry Pheto as a young widow who becomes a surrogate mother to Tsotsi and his ill-begotten baby. (RATED R. RUNNING TIME: 94 MINUTES)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 24, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/022406.pdf?ref=smdp.com)