Bamako

A courtroom drama with a difference.

Unlike other recent films about the plight of Africa, Bamako channels its outrage more directly, yet with greater subtlety, by recruiting real-life witnesses to Africa's economic crises.

Dramatic features born and bred on the African continent are rare commodities on these shores, and the opportunities they offer can stretch far beyond film appreciation and into the realm of world understanding.

For the most part, the arguments revolve around money, which results in a variety of facts and figures. That doesn't make Bamako boring, but it does sometimes resemble an economics lesson.