TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2023 REVIEW! What do you do when your friends are unfairly jailed on an island surrounded by shark-infested waters? You break them out, of course! At least, that’s the plan for Keisha (Shamilla Miller) and company in John Barker’s The Umbrella Men: Escape from Robben Island, the sequel to the underseen South African heist film Umbrella Men from last year. Like the previous movie, it’s an energetic and lighthearted film containing vibrant visuals and personality in spades. Barker brings the energy of Cape Town culture to bear — this time with a jailbreak instead of a heist.
For those who haven’t seen the first one (not entirely necessary to enjoy the latter), The Umbrella Men tracks a motley crew of South African musicians as they rob a bank during a popular music festival to save their favorite club from bankruptcy. It’s honestly extremely difficult to add anything novel to the heist genre. Still, the film was notable for representing the Bo Kaap, a Cape Town neighborhood known for its lively culture and diverse population. The narratives of both films are bolstered by infectious regional music, and the films collectively break from stale locales like New York and London.
“…your friends are unfairly jailed on an island surrounded by shark-infested waters…”
The same cast of characters returns, including Tariek, Uncle Percy, The General, and Mortimer. There are too many to list (a sign Barker is juggling too much). Still, characters like the pot-smoking Aunty Valerie are hard to forget as they plot a scuba rescue of the prisoners mentioned earlier on Robben Island, the same prison Nelson Mandela was locked away in for almost twenty years. Concurrently, there’s a hunt for an explanation behind the delivery of counterfeit banknotes used to pay off a previous debt. The film’s success hinges upon the chemistry between the core group of characters, and thankfully, in this regard, the film delivers.
It would have been a more efficient film had the scope of the picture and some of the characters been pared down a bit. It’s a bit too much to juggle. As fun as the central jailbreak setup manages to be, the twenty or minutes after its completion feels tacked on as Barker introduces a narrative subthread involving local government and foreign Chinese investors. There’s a lot to mine from subjects like that, but it’s out of place in an otherwise entertaining jailbreak film. Still, though, Robber Island manages to stay light throughout.
The best part of films like this is the inspiration they provide to learn more about the world. I doubt many in the US are familiar with the Bo Kaap locale, and its location amidst the Table Mountain makes it a more than compelling setting for such a film. Combine that with a vivid cast of characters, and The Umbrella Men: Escape from Robben Island makes for an exciting genre picture — the kind there’s always an appetite for.
The Umbrella Men: Escape from Robben Island screened at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.
