In
Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Jimmy
Stewart played a photojournalist recuperating from a broken leg suffered while
on an exotic assignment. Randal Hendricks is not quite as dashing. He was
paralyzed from the waist down when a drug deal went sour. Rather shortsightedly,
he funded his ill-advised foray into the narcotics trade with a vig from a loan
shark. Yes, there will also be a murder committed in the opposite building during
the early going of Nosipho Dumisa’s Number
37 (trailer
here),
which screened during the 2018 Fantasia International Film Festival.
The
wheelchair-bound Hendricks only has himself to blame, but he never seems to
learn. Instead, he cooks up ever more reckless schemes to compensate for each
disaster. His girlfriend Pam Ismael has not thrown him out yet, but she really
should. His self-pity and passive aggression are not very pleasant to live
with. He is not even grateful when she gives him a pair of binoculars to help pass
the time. Of course, he soon takes to voyeurism, so he happens to witness the
murder of a corrupt cop in the apartment across the grubby courtyard.
Instead
of calling the despised police, he hatches a plan with his slacker pal Warren
to extort 100 grand from the sinister “Lawyer” to pay back the just as evil Emmie.
Unfortunately, Warren is not the sort of accomplice who inspires confidence. Likewise,
it is unwise to antagonize a cat like Lawyer. Yet, Hendricks remains convinced
this is his only play.
Dumisa
proudly wears her Hitchcock influences on her sleeve, but she substitutes
grittiness and moodiness for the wit and elegance of Rear Window. It is safe to say Ismael’s frocks can’t compare to Grace
Kelly’s wardrobe. Nevertheless, she quite dexterously piles up one darned thing
after another on poor luckless Hendricks and the long-suffering Ismael. In
fact, she unleashes a veritable perfect storm of criminal mayhem down the
stretch.
Irshaad
Ally is all kinds of intense as the intensely exasperating Hendricks. However,
Monique Rockman really sets the hook as the naïve and vulnerable Ismael.
Viewers will want to kill Ephram Gordon’s recklessly irresponsible Warren themselves,
while David Manuel and Danny Ross seem like they are in a pitched battle to out-do
each other’s creepy malevolence as Lawyer and Emmie, respectively.
Unlike
Stewart’s well-appointed bachelor pad, Ismael’s apartment is dark and
uncomfortably claustrophobic. It is the sort of thriller location that
automatically creates tension. Frankly, Dumisa might overdo the naturalism for
viewers seeking pure suspense escapism, but nobody can say it doesn’t reflect the
street-level realities of contemporary South Africa. Recommended for fans of scrappy,
hard-edged thrillers, Number 37 had
its Canadian premiere at this year’s Fantasia.
