THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY ... THE COMEDY REVIEW

Reoccurring quote from various characters: "I don't want to talk about it."

The film starts with the fine narrator, Paddy Obyrne, introducing Xixo and his tribe, who live deep in the Kalahari desert, showing how they simply live comfortably in such an environment with little water. They had no knowledge of modern civilization, and shared everything with each other in peaceful harmony.

The narrator then shows a modern city in South Africa, explaining how modern man lives in the opposite way of the Bushmen. Instead of living in harmony with their environment, they create new environments and must live by all kinds of rules. They must change to keep up with the environment they have created.

The story then starts with a young newspaper page editor, Kate Thompson, in a high pressure job, deciding to be a teacher for awhile to get away from the rat race culture she finds herself in.

Several storylines are told by the narrator, and he switches back and forth between them, giving a short introduction as to what is happening in each chapter of each story. The storylines involve, Xixo, the rebels, the school teacher and the micro-biologist. The storylines begin to intertwine in various combinations, and all come together in the last 25 minutes of the story.

One storyline follows the travails of a small tribe of Bushmen. When a cola bottle that was carelessly thrown from an airplane into the Kalahari desert, a new, miracle tool, harder than wood or bone, was introduced into Xixo's tribal family of Bush People. While it was found to be useful for all kinds of things, it caused fighting among family members for the first time, who suddenly weren't willing to share it, as they had always shared all possessions. Tribal family leader, Xixo (N!xau), decides that the cola bottle was evil, and needed to be returned to the gods, who must of been crazy to give it to them in the first place. He first tries to bury it outside of camp. A hyena digs it up, and Xixo's children find it and have a big fight over it. Xixo plans to walk to the end of the world and throw this trouble causing thing away.

Another storyline follows the mishaps of a micro-biologist, Alan, who is working on his thesis. During the first part of the movie, shy, accident-prone Andrew Steyn (Marious Weyers) is asked by the Reverend (Jamie Uys himself) to drive the newspaper editor - turned - new school teacher, Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo) over rough terrain to her new school in his troublesome jeep, correctly named "The Anti-Christ." At this moment in time, this sorry excuse for a vehicle has no brakes, and won't start again if the engine stops.

Everything that can go wrong, does! Kate is kept waiting because Alan has some difficulty with the road gates and the hills around the gates, which is sure to amuse the audience. He finally manages to pick up Kate, after she has to wait awhile, which doesn't start things off on the right foot. The longer that Kate, Alan, and The Anti-Christ are together, the more Alan looks like an idiot, as he bumbles, stumbles all over the place in front of her! Very much like in a Woody Allen movie, in that it is a comedy of errors, which include slapstick comedy, incriminating situations and ill-timed words by Allen.

A favorite sequence of scenes starts with the jeep getting stuck in the river, and ends the next morning with The Anti-Christ cranked up in the tree! Things go down hill fast when The Anti-Christ gets stuck in a muddy river. After an unexpected dip in the river, they have to spend the night, with such occurrences as a fire-dancing rhino, a protective wart hog, and unexpected tribal friends. While she doesn't see the wart hog chase Alan into her, or witness the rhino putting out their campfire, seeing two tribal men appear unexpectedly made her trust Alan enough to stay with him. The next morning, Alan attaches the cord from the jeep's motorized crank to a high branch on shore. While the crank is slowly pulling the jeep out of the water, Alan has to rescue Kate, in a state of undress, from tree branches that have grabbed her with stickers, while she was getting dressed.

Luckily, Alan's friend and helper, Mpudi (Michael Thys) comes to their rescue when the tribal friends go and tell him of the problems with The Anti-Christ. As they are slowly being towed across the plain, along comes the suave, full of himself tour director, Jack Hind (Nic De Jager) in his new tour bus. He finishes the job by taking her to her new school. Once alone with her in his tour bus, he deliberately discredits Alan when he fibs to her that rhinos aren't the fire fighters of the plain, and won't immediately put any fire out they see. It seems that he also is interested in the new school teacher.

At this point, it doesn't look like Alan has a chance to win her heart, especially when he makes a fool of himself again when he tries to apologize to Kate in her new classroom in front of her students, which is a sequence of scenes wonderfully directed by Uys and performed by Marious Weyers.

Rather discouraged, Alan gets back to his camp to learn of new trouble. It seems that while passing through a farm in modern civilization , Xixo kills a farm animal to eat, not understanding that it belonged to someone, and that people in "modern society" have protected possessions. He is put into jail. He doesn't eat for a week. Alan's friend, Mpudi, who was called into interpret Xixo for the trial judge, knows that Xixo will die in jail. So Alan and Mpudi arrange for Xixo to be able to work off his sentence with Alan, as an environmental specialist.

Circumstances then arise that allows Alan to have another chance to prove his worth and character to Kate. When rebel leader, the slimy Sam Boga (Louw Verwey ) finds himself and his band of rebels on the run from the authorities, he and his armed men kidnap Kate Thompson and her school children, making them march along as the rebelsā human shields. It is Alan and friends to the rescue! However, once again, Jack Hind finds a way to appear to be in charge of their efforts to rescue the hostages. However, Kate, who probably heard what really happened from a witness, also sees the truth about Alan's feelings for her in an amusing sequence of scenes, which makes for a happy ending.

This hilarious screenplay was written by South African writer/director Jamie Uys, who won the 1981 Grand Prix at the Festival International du Film de Comedy Vevey. Under his talented direction, Director Uys, on a low budget, using unknown actors and his great script, created a wildly successful comedy that was shown in the United States for three years.

Marious Weyers did a fantastic job portraying good-hearted Alan Steyn, the smart, well-meaning micro-biologist, who falls apart when he is around women. Weyers does a marvelous job as being the straight man to all the slapstick and humorous situations his character finds himself in. Weyers effortlessly makes it all seem so natural, not contrived, which makes the scenes hilariously funny. There are several favorite sequence of scenes. His adventures with his awful jeep are all skillfully done, as he courageously determines how to get around the disadvantages of having a vehicle with no brakes and a deficient motor to accomplish the most common tasks, like opening and closing road gates on hills, etc.

His nervousness and subsequent missteps into slapstick comedy when he is around Kate are all equally amusing, especially the ones which happen when he is trying to tell Kate how he feels about her.

Sandra Prinsloo does a great job portraying Kate Thompson, a little bit of a city princess, used to a higher grade of vehicle, and more socially poised men. She reacts beautifully to all the adventures she undergoes as her character transforms from a woman born in modern civilization to a person who rises to the occasion to see the truth, and understand underlying human value, that exists under outward appearances, as she adapts to her new more natural, simpler environment, where people are seen more clearly for who they are by their actions and motives.

N!xau, a real life Bushman, wonderfully portrays himself as Nixo, who has a natural flair for comedy as well. While N!xau speaks his native language, the narrator effectively translates what he says, which makes the intertwining of these two cultures authentic, adding a lot to the story.

A favorite sequence of scenes with N!au, is when his character, Nixo, helps to covertly put the bad guys to sleep so the possibility of escape and rescue exists for Kate and the children.

If you enjoyed THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY, you will love THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY II, and may like CROCODILE DUNDEE, CROCODILE DUNDEE 2, GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE, TARZAN (1999), GREYSTROKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN - LORD OF THE APES, and TARZAN AND HIS MATE.