Hansie - Movie Review
Wessel Johannes Cronjé was a good fielder, a handy bowler, an average batman (which he more than made up for by sheer grit) – but, head & shoulders above all his other cricketing credentials, he was the consummate leader. Thorough, charismatic & inspirational, Hansie (essayed in the movie by the square-jawed Frank Rautenbach) was the most revered youth icon & a household name in South Africa right through his six years at the helm of the national cricket team. Cronjé, then Coach Bob Woolmer (played by Nick Lorentz) & then Chief Selector Peter Pollock (played by David Sherwood) took the prodigal Proteas from being a bunch of unsure, recently Apartheid-returned cricketers to almost becoming World Champions. The curse of a movie about a deceased much-loved-hero-turned-anti-hero is that whenever there is someone from the immediate family behind it, one invariably tends to question the authenticity of its truth-telling abilities, for personal bias is an ever-present t...