Umthetho is a new Netflix thriller from South Africa, and it features a young prosecutor compromising her impeccable ethics in order to save both the older brother she thought was dead and the younger brother who is being accused of a crime he didn’t commit. Oh, and she wears some fantastic-looking suits in the first episode.
UMTHETHO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A man is chased by police through a neighborhood. He’s eventually caught on a soccer field, and the cops beat him with billy clubs.
The Gist: Mbali Dlamini (Nqobile Nunu Gamedze) is a prosecutor who deals with a lot of domestic violence cases. After winning a case, she’s approached by a woman named Crystal (Lorcia Cooper), who gives her a file to examine. It turns out to be the file of her older brother Moses (Tony Kgoroge), which shocks her; she thought Moses died 14 years prior.
Moses leads a gang in prison called Gaz’lam, which is supposed to fight for the inmates’ rights. He’s also trying to get rid of the drugs that have infiltrated his prison block, thanks to the corrupt warden, Agnes Khoza (Sindi Dlathu), and her police detective henchman, Bennet Tau (Molefi Monasia). He’s confident that he will be released after his upcoming parole hearing, but after he’s attacked in the lunchroom, he’s sent to solitary, where Agnes frames him for killing another inmate.
At the hearing, Tau shows video of the dead inmate, and Moses responds with a screed about how corrupt Agnes and her crew are. He yells, “My blood is my brother’s blood,” which is the motto of Gaz’lam.
Meanwhile, Mbali’s younger brother Sphelle (Given Stuurman), who wants to quit college and earn money for the family as a chef, takes in his girlfriend Ntombi Sibiya (Lungelo Madondo), who was kicked out of her family’s house after her mother discovers a positive pregnancy test.
Crystal, who married Moses after he went to prison, appeals to Mbali that he’s being set up by Agnes, and that he didn’t kill the inmate that he was accused of killing. In fact, he’s being tortured by Agnes and Tau in “the hole.” Mbali agrees to help get him out of that situation, which involves her forging documents that detail an investigation and confidently blackmailing Agnes to let Moses back into general population. But when Agnes sees Mbali tear up as Moses is led out of the torture chamber, she realizes something isn’t right, and she gets Mbali arrested for forging documents.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Umthetho has a similar feel to a thriller like Prison Break.
Our Take: What makes Umthetho work is an electric lead performance by Nqobile Nunu Gamedze as Mbali. She is glamorous and confident when she strides into court, wearing tailored and coordinated suits and ties, hair perfectly coiffed, and is good at her job. But Gamedze is also good at showing how the shock of knowing Moses has been alive for the entire time she thought he was dead is affecting her. Even though she is an unfailingly ethical prosecutor, she’s convinced to break the law in order to protect her brother, despite the intervening years.
But the combination of Agnes and Inspector Tau make a powerful (and at times, cartoonish) “big bad” for Mbali to deal with, and by the end of the first episode, Tau has enough on Mbali to get her to work towards keeping Moses in prison for life. Just to cement her double-agent status, they’re going to frame Sphelle with drug possession — hence the chase we saw in the episode’s first scene — and he’ll be in prison with the brother he never really got to know. At a certain point, Mbali is going to have to figure out how to save both of her brothers, and all of those ethics we saw from her will go out the window.
It’s quite the Breaking Bad-style scenario, but with the caveat that Mbali isn’t sliding into a life of crime for ego-driven reasons. It’s all out of a sense of love and loyalty, which is going to inform all of her decision-making, even if she’s pulled by both her brothers and by Agnes and Tau.
Performance Worth Watching: Since we already talked about Nunu, we’ll cite Sindi Dlathu here. She plays Agnes, who is the most corrupt warden we’ve seen on a show in quite some time, and she plays her evilness with scenery-chewing glee.
Sex And Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Once Moses is back with the general population, he instructs his followers to kill a snitch in their midst.
Sleeper Star: Given Stuurman’s character, Sphelle, is a guy with ambitions, but we’re interested in seeing how well or poorly he does when he’s thrown into prison.
Most Pilot-y Line: One of Moses’ rivals, Scarra (Ernest Msibi), escapes with help from a poisoned orange. It was poisoned by Crystal, however, and she wonders why Scarra gets to escape instead of her husband. We’re wondering that too.
Our Call: STREAM IT. A riveting lead performance and a story that has a lot of potential to show a virtuous character compromise their ethics makes Umthetho a thriller that is interesting to watch.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
