House of Stone watchable

By Tawanda Matanhire

It was glitz and glamour at the premiere of House of Stone, the movie, and launch of a series by the same name at SK Joina City last Friday.
The red carpet event saw the who-is-who in Zimbabwe’s entertainment industry turning up. The event ended up looking like a fashion show as everyone came dressed to the nines.
Movie director, Mark Mandisoul, said the attendance was as he had imagined though some guests were caught up in a traffic jam.
“I’m really happy with all the people that came for the premiere, the support is overwhelming and yes others failed to make it because of the rains and others came a bit late because of the traffic jam in the city which also delayed events here,” Mandisoul said.
Tafadzwa Jack Chimbetete apologised for the delays in starting the show. SK Cinema 4 was almost packed when the movie began.
House of Stone is about Mark Mabhena (Marc Mandisoul), an underground well-connected hustler who is reunited with his past when he returns to Zimbabwe from New York to protect his father’s legacy after living a life of crime.
He has a tail.
Interpol agents led by Collete Le Grange and her Special Red Dragons Unit are in hot pursuit.
In the streets, conflict arises between him and Patrick Morake, a street-wise kingpin who claims to be Mabhena’s brother.
Making the storyline easy to understand was one achievement made by House of Stone’s Marc Mandisoul, who made his debut appearance as an actor.
It terms of cinematography – it was simply world class. The drone shots were on point as well as the colour grading and the night scenes.
The movie is full of action, and wow moments. Car chases could easily be mistaken for a scene from Need for Speed, Fast and Furious or Transporter.
Zimbabwe indeed has a lot of talent.
But, of course, the whole affair had its down side.
Sound, on certain scenes, was not in sync with the action, although most people in the audience did not even notice it.
Fight scenes were too fictious. The movie itself is too masculine, lacks women and seduction.
To make matters worse – after watching the movie for about 1 hour 15 minutes – the screen just went blank with about 13 minutes remaining. So, basically, there was no ending, no climax.
An announcement was made about a technical fault but unfortunately, there were unable to fix it, and so that was it.
Producer Mandisoul said it was an unfortunate occurrence they did not expect.
“It’s really disheartening to experience such but we will be screening the movie soon on ZBC-TV followed by the series version and I hope you will enjoy the continuity of the movie,” he said.
House of Stone is one of the few if not only action movies that came out of Zimbabwe in 2020 after being filmed under harsh Covid-19 restrictions with a lot of challenges along the way. Nhau/Indaba