Film Critic: Stephen ‘Spling’ Aspeling
Bypass is a medical thriller, directed by Shane Vermooten and starring Natalie Becker, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Greg Kriek and Deon Lotz. It centres on, and creates awareness about the controversial criminal world of human organ trafficking. We journey with Dr Lisa Cooper, a renowned cardiac surgeon, who is forced to take desperate measures in order to secure a future for her son, Sam. After giving her consent for Sam to undergo an illegal procedure at a clinic in East Africa, she begins to realise that she may have inadvertently endangered both of their lives.
While there have been a handful of good medical thrillers, exposing the darker side of hospitals, medicine and surgery… most of them have approached the subgenre from a psychological standpoint. While Bypass deals with a mother’s mindset in response to being separated from her child, it’s one of the few medical thrillers that actually takes place in a hospital. This setup would usually involve horror, and while Bypass was influenced by horror thrillers, this isn’t its primary currency, staying true to its positioning as “Africa’s first medical thriller”.
A first for Africa, it also marks the feature film directorial debut for Shane Vermooten, a passionate young filmmaker who has a bright future ahead of him. Together with his team, they’ve managed to present a respectable big film on a small budget. Through talent, hard work, resourcefulness, networking and partnerships, they have pieced together a visually-enticing film with good production values, compelling sound design, convincing special effects and a solid ensemble in a timely story with positive social implications. Unfortunately, while Bypass checks many boxes, it’s undermined by a thin script and some naïve decision-making.
Dr Lisa Cooper features prominently enough for Bypass to have been a character portrait. While we understand her emotional journey, it all seems like one-way traffic without giving her the time to form relationships with any fully-formed characters. The story is primarily event-driven and there aren’t enough meaningful interactions with other characters to truly excavate her inner world. This impacts on perceived nuance and subtext, making the story straightforward and seem as two-dimensional as a graphic novel. Some moments seem staged, failing to accommodate or reason with possible external forces and allowing our heroine to go through the motions with perceived rather than actual opposition.
Without the rich dialogue to help develop each character’s unique disposition, Bypass becomes action-orientated forcing us to glean character details on-the-run. While it maintains good pacing, this makes for a fairly lightweight and painless medical thriller. It’s easier to enjoy thanks to the beautiful and elemental Natalie Becker, whose fascinating face graces almost every scene. The wealth of character actors do what they can to ground their supporting performances, yet without the necessary exposition, we have to make do with broad brush strokes.
It’s wonderful to see Natalie Becker taking on a lead role as the determined actor grinds out a gritty performance with emotions rippling across her face. Up-and-coming actor, Greg Kriek, tackles the duality of a man constantly subjugating his identity and sense of morality. Hakeem Kae-Kazim is a dependable actor and turns out a composed and well-balanced performance as Dr. Chris Moanda. Shoki Mokgapa embodies the word ‘clinical’ as the serene Sister Mmaya and could’ve been given more story responsibility. Joel Brown is sweet-natured and innocent as Sam, while Deon Lotz gets a grip on his Dutch accent and adds some maniacal joy to his role as Dr Wright, who was worthy of more exploration.
Without a fully-fledged emotional connection to the characters, the story becomes obscured and safe from a distance. While the quick pacing keeps one entertained with a constant flow of crisp visuals peppered with twists-and-turns, the screenplay doesn’t dig deep enough into the inner worlds of the characters, or organ trafficking racket to truly engage the audience on an intellectual level. For its budget, Bypass is ambitious and even commendable within its context, however one can’t help but feel that the script would’ve benefited from more time in the incubator. Then, while it aims for international appeal… the production needed to be tighter, more cautious and more focused.
While Bypass struggles to overcome its inherent flaws, Vermooten delivers a competitive production and a cohesive story with style. A lightweight feature, it’s easy enough to adjust to the world of Bypass and enjoy the film for what its worth. Being a competent, female-led, low budget film about organ trafficking with a sharp South African cast, there’s much to admire, it’s just a pity that it all just seems a bit too rushed.
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