MOVIE

Hank, Hennery en Vriend

1976 · 91 min ·

Made in the 1970s, a time when South Africans were constantly being reminded about the communist onslaught, this features Hank (originally English-speaking) and Hennery (Afrikaans-speaking), two very laid-back secret agents who, together with a black colleague (Vriend), manage to foil a terrorist plot to take over the country. They are introduced as beach bums and for at least the first half the film comes across as a not very good buddy movie. For much of the time we're not too certain of just who they are and from whom they get their orders, though once in a while they speak to someone in Pretoria. On the way into the mountains of Lesotho, they pick up a girl (a communist agent who switches sides without any qualms when she falls in love with Hennery). The unlikely baddies are an Afrikaans-speaking group of communists, disguised as members of a monastic order. Interestingly, the agents' black comrade is treated throughout as an equal and the race question doesn't really come into it.