Madhav Gupta If you had to show a bunch of photographers running around taking random pictures in the wilderness of Africa throughout the 2 hours with no plot, no real story-just a collage of random occurrences, unnecessarily forced love-angles and unwanted emotionalism with no real vigor then you hit the nail right on the head with this one. I have never seen an attempt to throw a bunch of unrelated events together to make a full film with so much dexterity than this film. If you just wanted to show him win the pulitzer for photojournalism then you could have made into a half an hour biography with about the same impact and story as this wasted piece here. Skip it for you own good.

Boris Todorov The really successful thing about the movie is that the director apparently (I wasn't there to know how truthfully) managed to reproduce in a convincing, graphic manner the real atmosphere of combat photograph shooting. What Marinovich (and Silva) wrote down as separate accounts of the events, tensions and dangers of taking the most striking and memorable photographs, Silver just develops in well-organized scenes. Greg's crazy visit to the hostel - the step that brought him into the "club" and turned him into a world-renowned photographer - was particularly dramatic and colorful. Otherwise, the movie has not created any story of its own - it just has just patched up the highlights in Marinovich and Silva's book and bound them together within the loose frames of a dull and uninspiring story of the four "bang bang club" photographers meeting, working together and coping with the existential and ethical issues of their vocation. Perhaps Silver did not want to manipulate Marinovich's text; the outcome, however, is rather insipid and people who have just watched the movie and never read the book may very well miss the point.

A A I watched this movie by chance because it was on the TV so I didn't have high expectations. I've never read the book and I hadn't heard of the Bang Bang Club so this was all new to me. A very interesting movie which leaves you wondering. Are those photographers brave men who show the public what it needs to see? Or are they adrenaline driven mavericks who do nothing when they see horrible crimes overwhelmed by the possibility of a good shot?I'm not a big fan of Ryan Phillippe and this movie didn't change my opinion. Somehow I found his character lifeless which is odd because he seems to be the main character in this movie. The love story is unnecessary and gave the impression that the filmmakers desperately were looking for a reason to have woman in the main cast. However the rest of the cast is brilliant especially Taylor Kitsch who I hope will have a big career in the years to come.This is a fine movie and I highly recommend it. However be informed that it is not a feel-good movie and sometimes hard to take because of the amount of violence and tragedy.

TxMike It was the early 1990s and Mandella was nearing his freedom from prison and eventual President of South Africa in its free election.There still was rampant fighting and killing between different tribes. So bad was the hate that even if a lone man was suspected of being of the wrong tribe he was beaten and killed, with the same sense that one might kill a rabbit and bring it home for dinner. Except the dead were left in the streets.Strife like this draws professional photographers, every day hoping to get a unique picture that will enhance their reputation and pad their wallet. This movie and its title are about the photographers, in particular 4 of them who became members of what then was called "the bang bang club", the men who every day went among the fighting and shooting, the "bang bangs" of ammunition. Not all of them survived.Main focus is on Ryan Phillippe as Greg Marinovich, a South African photographer who was awarded the Pulitzer for some of his photos. His romantic interest is pretty Malin Akerman as Robin Comley.The movie also treats the question, "are photographers just innocent bystanders who record the events without interfering?" In one scene we see Marinovich at first just photographing, but then trying to intercede as a man is beaten and eventually set on fire. You cannot do that job, and see what you see, without being changed.