How do You Redeem Yourself?

When a you make horrible decisions with your life, how do you redeem yourself? One might think doing good acts to make up those bad one might help. I say that it is not just the good acts, but personal satisfaction with what you have done. People can say, “Man he is changing his life around and he is sorry for what he has done”, but you will only know when your life has truly been redeemed. I just finished a movie where the main character, Tsotsi, redeemed himself for the acts that he had done.

Tsotsi, meaning thug in African, is the leader of a small gang of four from the slums. This gang goes to the subway, scouts for a rich person, then robs their target. One night the victim is a little resistive and he gets killed during the robbery. This unsettles two members in the gang, the Teacher and Asp. Relaxing at the local bar, the Teacher starts to yell at Tsotsi about the lack decency that they had for killing that man. Tsotsi snaps and kicks the shit out of Teacher.

Thinking about what just happened at the bar, Tsotsi goes for a walk into a nice residential part of the city. While sitting under a tree, a woman, Pumla, is stuck behind the gate to her house. Tsotsi takes full advantage of this situation when Pumla steps out of her car to talk into the intercom. Grinding the gears of the car, Tsotsi gets the attention of Pumla. She races to the side of the car to stop him. Doing the only thing Tsotsi knows how to do, he shoots Pumla in the stomach.

Driving through the countryside, Tsotsi hears the cries of grim realization, a baby in the back seat. The car crashes into a road sign and is left broken down on the side of the road. Tsotsi goes to abandon the car but comes back and takes the baby also. I do not want to ruin the movie so if you do want to watch the movie, I would ask you to stop reading now and go rent the movie right now!

Tsotsi goes on resulting to violence not knowing how else to act, till a disturbing event with the babies dad, John, and one of his gang members. The gang member goes to kill John when Tsotsi saves John life by killing his own gang member. Throughout the entire movie you see the change of Tsotsi from a cold blooded punk thug, to a remorseful person. By the end he has realized how he must redeem himself, so he returns the baby to the owner even though he is certain that he will be caught my the police. In an emotional scene, you can tell that the weight of having the baby is lifted off Tsotsi's shoulders when he gives the baby back to his parents.

Tsotsi redeemed himself by giving back the baby. He know the consequences and probably could have still gotten away with the crime, With the quest for redemption, Tsotsi decided that was the only way to face his inter demons and fix the problems that he had caused for this family.

This powerful movie allowed me to take a first hand look at how lucky I am. A man having to rob, kill, and steal to survive is something I wish that I never to do. This movie also made me realize that no matter how deep you get, you can always redeem yourself and seek forgiveness. Through Tsotsi's mistakes, he finds a kind hearted and caring person inside himself, in a round about way. This movie is one that I will always remember and hopefully never have to experience.