Most high school English students learn that there are essentially only three plotlines: person versus him/herself; person versus person; person versus some outside force. Though the variants on these three narratives are clearly endless, it is apparent that very similar versions are frequently repeated. This is certainly true of movies, as is shown in a release currently available on Netflix: Silverton Siege is yet another suspense film based on a hostage-taking event.
Because the basic plot is so familiar, potential viewers can be understood if they dismiss this film as formulaic, though Silverton Siege does offer some interesting developments.
Three guerilla fighters in apartheid South Africa attempt to blow up an oil refinery, but they are betrayed by a person unknown to them. After an action-filled car chase (another all-too-familiar trope), the militants enter a bank and hold the employees and customers hostage, which results in a lengthy attempt on the hostage-takers’ part to try to bargain a safe escape.
Though labelled “inspired by true events,” most of the storyline is invention. There was indeed a hostage-taking event in 1980 in Silverton, South Africa, during the apartheid period. Three black men did in fact take hostages in a bank. The actual event is regarded by many as a seminal moment in overthrowing a despicable racist tyranny. However, the film rewrites history considerably. For example, to add dramatic weight to the story, in the film one of the hostage-takers is a woman, while those involved in both sides of the conflict are given conflict-convenient invented backgrounds – just some of the film’s many distortions of history.
As happened in real life, the hostage-takers demand the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, which is why the incident took on so much historical significance. Moreover, because of the careful manipulation of characters, the film offers a range of approaches to the racism that inspired apartheid and which is still sadly reflected in our larger society today.
The characters are clearly shaped as representatives of various ideologies, so that some may charge the script writers with resorting to cheap tricks. Because the script sets up a range of familiar racial conflicts to allow for the exploration of yet more cinematic clichés, the thoughtful viewer may well disapprove of this blatant plot manipulation. Others may be intrigued by what is obviously an attempt to be a reminder of just how complicated an issue racism truly is. In this, the film demonstrates how difficult, not to mention necessary, it is to change racist opinions. While hardly revolutionary in its treatment of prejudice, the film does become a lot more than another story of hostage-taking.
Silverton Siege may be unoriginal in many ways. It may even be guilty of cheapening a truly horrendous racial policy in the interest of entertainment. However, on its own terms, Silverton Siege is well acted, action-packed, suspenseful, skillfully directed, and even thought-provoking.
