Chained together, a racist Caucasian man and a native African man gradually learn to get on after fleeing a crashed prison van in this emotionally charged drama that could be considered Zimbabwe's answer to 'The Defiant Ones'. As per 'The Defiant Ones', it is a predictable tale of overcoming racial prejudice, though some unusual subplots unexpectedly (and refreshingly) crop up. The Causasian prisoner is charged with murder, but it was a revenge killing for his wife and child's brutal slaying by a couple of African men, hence all the vitriol and hatred. The African prisoner, as it so happens, actually knows who killed his family and the pair team up as they try to exact their own form of justice. Not quite as successful as this subplot is the introduction of a female character who tags along the pair for reasons unknown, bringing a lot of romantic tension and little else. The film has some pacing issues too with a long time before they flee, and the decision to portray the African prisoner as far more rationale than the Caucasian one, just wanting "to be treated like a human being" makes this less dynamic than it might have been had both men been equally prejudiced. Whatever the case, the bond between the pair feels very real by the end of the movie and a scene near the end where the African man utters the title phrase (meaning "my friend") really lingers in the mind.
