Kris Van der Bijl

Inkabi is a South African movie very much made for Netflix. It follows Lucy – a woman drawn into a larger, more mythologically based world of a former inkabi named Frank. He becomes her “mulinzi” – protector – after she witnesses another inkabi successfully kill the rich businessman. According to some Zulu lore that the movies takes very little care fleshing out, this inkabi now needs to kill others for his hit to be complete.

The plot needed more thought. It begins with Lucy arriving late for her job at a shady casino in Johannesburg’s inner city. This is also the first time she and Frank meet. She uses Frank’s taxi to get to work. But when she arrives and realises she does not have enough money to pay him, she leaps out of the car and runs.

Lucy is late because she slept in and lies to her boss about this. She’s clearly hungover and promises not to get drunk on shift, but ends up drinking and taking drugs with her customers. Lucy has such a wild night that she sleeps in again the next day and nearly misses a court appointment. This appointment decides whether she is fit to look after her daughter, Angela. I think we’re supposed to feel sorry for her when the state decides to keep her daughter in their custody.

Lucy is a mess from the get-go, yet we’re supposed to sympathise with her. It’s never made clear what events led up to Lucy developing a drinking problem and losing her child. This is a mistake. The viewer does not know the events that led to Lucy and her current situation. All we’re shown are her current characteristics of alcoholism and poor parenting. Even hinting at how tough life has been to her would have gone a long way.

She meets Frank again after the case. Despite their connection being tenuous at best, Frank gives her his number. She ends up phoning him again when she gets in trouble with a wealthy man with whom she goes on a drug and alcohol-fueled date.

Lucy met this wealthy man at her place of work. Unknown to her, he has a hit out against him. An Inkabi, who we later learn is named Scar, successfully kills the man. Lucy sees him, and Scar sees that Lucy knows about the murder. He chases her out into the street with his gun and misses every shot. Once Lucy finds cover, she phones Frank, and he comes to find her. Luckily for her, Frank knows both exactly where to drive and that he must shoot Scar on arrival. She and Frank drive away, thinking that Scar is dead.

What follows is a slew of South African crime movie cliches:

• The cops are corrupt and working with the criminals.
• Societal violence makes escape to safety nearly impossible.
• The broader, violent South African society acts as a metaphor for the terrible situation that Lucy is in.

One scene to illustrate this is when Frank approaches his neighbour, who is beating his wife. This act of gratuitous violence towards women has no real plot implications. It acts as an illustration that violence permeates most South African lives. It also serves to remind the audience that Frank is a good guy and that being good involves standing up for injustice within your community.

But the worst cliches (bar the Stormtrooper aim of anyone with a guy) is the poorly fleshed-out lore of an Inkabi. The only explanation for why Lucy is in danger is that once a hit is ordered, it must be completed. Frank knows this because he is an Inkabi who himself is in hiding. Somehow, this lore allows Scar to survive Frank’s bullets and engage in a never-ending perusal of Lucy. Scar becomes almost superhuman, a good thing considering the plot needs him to be alive for tension but still capable of dying at the climax for closure.

The climax is difficult to make sense of. In an effort to protect her daughter, Lucy ends up being kidnapped by men in military uniform who also (unrelatedly) are rhino horn traders. Luckily for the plot, Lucy’s daughter Angela does not question whether or not she should follow Frank. Nor does she question being left with a traditional healer as Frank goes on the final mission to save Lucy.

At least the traditional healer serves a purpose. He explains that it is Frank that they have been after all along. The powers that be who are currently holding Lucy hostage are merely doing it to attract Frank. I think this somehow relates to a hit years ago that Frank did not complete and was himself running from. It could also be that someone put a hit out for Frank, and all the other murders were just accidents.

This is where folklore as a narrative device fails. A writer does not need to explain the lore. Still, they should utilise consistency for the viewer to understand it themselves. The way that Netflix uses the Inkabi lore feels like they wanted a tale with an African spiritual spin and did not think it necessary to make it make sense. Their prospective viewer would not care. For them, it is enough that it is foreign and, therefore, intriguing. Why be clear when they could shrug and say, “This is Africa”? I believe this is precisely what the writers did, or they just don’t care about constructing a coherent plot.

Frank finds the group holding Lucy hostage. He finds a gun, dodges their bullets, but manages to land all his shots. He holds Lucy, and they have a short, sentimental moment before the final turn of events.

A man in a cowboy hat attempts to shoot Frank. Luckily for Frank, he shoots and does not get hit. Lucy, however, is not so lucky. And in her dying breath she thanks Frank and asks him to look after Angela. I suppose Frank didn’t want to remind Lucy that she had lost custody.

Inkabi ends with Frank and Angela walking in the veld. Does he have custody? Who cares. It seems unlikely that whatever government agency was looking after Angela didn’t even know that she was taken in the first place. I mean, how did Lucy get Angela back in the first place? The court was pretty firm that the mother and daughter were to have no contact. Yet somehow, Lucy took her out of the city. And now, somehow, Frank is to be her custodian.

I think Inkabi was a missed opportunity. Frank Njugi mentions that this is one of six micro-budget films being produced in a partnership between Netflix and South Africa’s National Film and Video Foundation. I only hope the others care enough to put a plot together.