We are told of this requirement in the opening titles, but the press release explains why it is necessary: “the threat of communism and ‘die swart gevaar’ (the so-called black danger) is at an all-time high.
Sixteen-year-old Nicholas enlists in 1981 to serve the two years of military conscription required for all White men. He is such a symbolic, one-dimensional drone that even the rare tender moment fails to evoke much of a response on his part. Nicholas looks on with a dazed, emotionless expression on his face, which is how he spends about 90 percent of this film. When one frazzled recruit suddenly blows his own head off with his rifle, I questioned whether I’d met this character before. Unlike “Full Metal Jacket,” however, these grunts are virtually indistinguishable outside of our protagonist, Nicholas van der Swart ( Kai Luke Brummer). Most of his dialogue consists of screaming out the N-word and the homophobic slur the subtitles translate whenever the film’s title is uttered. Lee Ermey’s drill sergeant though far less interesting. The recruits are tormented by Sergeant Brand ( Hilton Pelser), who is just as brutal as R. I bring up Kubrick’s 1987 Vietnam drama because much of “Moffie” takes place in a brutal boot camp specifically designed to turn teenagers into heartless killing machines.
