‘Indemnity’ Review: South African Fugitive Thriller Has the Swagger, But Not the Script

variety.com:

Guy Lodge Film CriticAs a perennially popular international filming location — its varied landscapes standing in for everywhere from the Sahara to the French Riviera — South Africa has provided the anonymous backdrop for many a slick big-budget action thriller over the years.

Rarer are films from the country’s own industry that aspire to equivalent commercial thrills, which lends Cape Town-based writer-director Travis Taute’s debut feature “Indemnity” a certain bracing novelty that counters its more generic qualities.

Joining a PTSD-afflicted firefighter on the run after being framed for the murder of his wife, Taute’s diverting film punches well above its modestly budgeted weight in terms of propulsive, literally incendiary action scenes — but is on less sure footing with a narrative that lurches from lean fugitive drama to overworked conspiracy nightmare.

A far stricter edit could have solved a number of problems in this unevenly paced and, at 124 minutes, significantly overlong film, which is both slow to get going and repetitive in its denouement. “Indemnity’s” far fleeter middle section, however, is both a clear glimpse of the tense, tidy 90-minute exercise it could have been, and an enticing calling card for Taute himself.