Stander

The life and career of Andre Stander, a South African police officer turned bank robber. 

Director: Bronwen Hughes

Writer: Bima Stagg

Stars: Thomas Jane, David O'Hara, Dexter Fletcher

Storyline

In the early 1980's, a white police officer (Andres Stander, played by Thomas Jane) in Johannesburg suffers a crisis of conscience due to his involvement in apartheid and becomes a notorious bank robber on the run. Then from 1983 to 1984, the "Stander gang" (Stander, Alan Heyl & Patrick McCall) rob as many as four banks a day. 

 

Stander Movie Reviews

 

In 1976, in Johannesburg, the efficient anti-racist Homicide/Robbery Police Captain Andre Stander (Thomas Jane) has a nervous breakdown after killing an unarmed man in an apartheid protest. Stander decides to confront and mock the established corrupt system heisting twenty-six banks while working for the police department. He is captured and sentenced to thirty-two years in prison; however, he succeeds to escape with the criminals Lee McCall (Dexter Fletcher) and Allan Heyl (David Patrick O'Hara) and together they form "The Stander Gang" and rob another twenty banks in six months.

"Stander" tells the story of the notorious Afrikaner bank robber and former police captain Andre Stander. The movie works perfectly as an action movie, but if the intention was to give any political connotation to the actions of the anti-hero Stander, it completely fails. Stander is shown as an efficient but unbalanced man in love for his wife performed by the gorgeous Deborah Kara Unger that defies the system, not like a Robin Hood or to protect the black people, but for self-profit only. Thomas Jane has a great performance in the role of this complex character. My vote is seven.