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| "Stander" is based on the true story of André Stander, a South African homicide/robbery police captain who became one of the most notorious bank robbers in the country.
STANDER is the latest feature from up and coming director Bronwen Hughes (Forces of Nature) and stars Thomas Jane, (The Punisher, Dreamcatcher, Deep Blue Sea), Deborah Kara Unger (The Game, Crash, Thirteen), David Patrick O’Hara (Braveheart) and Dexter Fletcher (Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Elephant Man, The Long Good Friday). Featuring a pumping David Holmes original soundtrack (Oceans 11 & 12), the DVD of STANDER will also include an Audio Commentary from Bronwen Hughes, Anatomy of a Scene, the Deleted Beach Scene along with the theatrical trailer.
Set in the late 70s and early 80s South African police captain Andre Stander (Thomas Jane) suffers a crisis of conscience after participating in the brutal killing of rioting blacks while in the line of duty. Stander decided to defy the very system he was a part of an set off on an audacious crime spree – robbing banks during his lunch hour and then returning to the scene of the crime to lead the investigation.
Finally caught by the same police force he worked with, Stander was jailed and subsequently befriended by Allan Heyl (David Patrick O’Hara) and Lee McCall (Dexter Fletcher). Following a daring jailbreak, the ‘Stander’ Gang committed a large number of bank heists, which grew increasingly bold as time went on. With their increasingly outrageous disguises the gang were robbing 4 or 5 banks in a single day. In the eyes of the public, their blatant disregard for authority made them South Africa’s most popular anti-heroes. To the police, however, Stander and his gang were the most wanted men in the country.
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Here's what our members thought of this title. 5 stars = very good, 1 star = poor.
 |  | "Good Cop, Great Criminal."
Best known for action roles in movies like The Punisher and Deep Blue Sea, Tom Jane delivers a star-making performance in the startling true tale of Andre Stander, a South African cop turned bank robber whose daring heists earned him folk hero status in the early Eighties. Suffering a near-overwhelming crisis of conscience after killing an innocent black protestor at a township riot, Stander set out to undermine the very system he was a part of, turning to crime as a means of showing up his inept and institutionally racist former colleagues.
To the public he and his gang were beloved anti-heroes, falling somewhere between Robin Hood and the Barrow gang. To the police, however, he was an endless embarrassment and ultimately their most wanted man. Not that that stopped him, or even slowed him down. Quite the opposite, really… An exhilarating crime flick with a strong social conscience, Stander is a deeply felt and thoughtful yet endlessly exciting crime thriller with a strong sense of humour, some wonderful performances and a powerful visual punch courtesy of director Bronwen Hughes.
Previously best known for her movies Harriet The Spy and Forces of Nature, Hughes was smitten with the story from the moment she first laid eyes on the screenplay. "About page ten, there was the township uprising scene, which was electrifying, and I thought, 'Oh, it's that kind of movie'. Then I turn a few pages, and it's a cop movie. Then I turn a few more pages, and it's a bank robber movie. It kept me guessing, and I was hooked."
Though impressed with her entire cast, Dexter Fletcher, David O'Hara and Deborah Unger among them, Hughes is particularly grateful to her leading man for his outstanding contribution. "Thomas goes full force the whole time. I've never met an actor who's so always 'on'. Even when we were exhausted, he would have the big picture in his head and come equipped after rehearsing his scenes all night. He also did a lot of his own driving stunts after being coached by the stunt drivers, but even they had to sometimes say, 'Thomas, you've got to slow down, man', because he was into it big time."
As for the Stander Gang's outrageous robberies, "the most audacious parts were true," reveals Hughes. "They robbed the same bank twice, and robbed the bank in the same building as their very own task force." Before the police realised it was Stander making them look so foolish, he'd regularly "investigate his own robberies with the loot from the morning's haul in the trunk of his car. And there's more than that - there's crazier things that just didn't fit into the movie."
The most challenging scene in the film, both to make and to watch, is the disastrous township uprising that triggers Stander's metamorphosis. "That was the most daunting and electrifying scene of the film for me," remembers Hughes. "I pushed it way down the production schedule to get ready for it. The production reason was how big it was, with 1,300 extras re-enacting their very recent and very raw history. Also, the number of cameras that we had to coordinate and the chaos that would ensue that we couldn't really control. For production reasons, I had to push it down, but I also did it for creative and emotional reasons as well.
"I felt this big weight of responsibility to get this story right and we treated this scene like a film within in a film. We had four days to shoot the protests and the riot itself, and the prep for the riot and the aftermath when Stander loses it and jumps on his own guys. So four days, with 1,300 extras on one of the days. It was kind of its own animal. We had prepped in every way we could, but when all of those people got together, it was so emotional. It was amazing, but it didn't actually go down the way we planned. People just don't hit their mark, they stop too soon, the camera is in the wrong position, and you can't say 'go back and start again'. You have to think on your feet."
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