The movie follows a lawyer (Steve Coogan) as he sets out to prove a prison guard's murderings were a direct result of psychological trauma from the volatile work environment he took part in.
Shepherds and Butchers doesn't know which it is: the twisty legal drama that's going to herd us through the issue or the ferocious expose, laying out the quotidian grimness of systemic death.
The film mostly preaches to the converted, even if it reveals with historical gravity how capital punishment was another way that apartheid severely discriminated against South Africa's black population.
There's a powerful movie to be made about the range of lives destroyed by the apartheid system -- both Black and white -- but Shepherds And Butchers isn't it.
The performances are solid, including Coogan and especially Garion Dowds as the laconic and mournful defendant. Director Oliver Schmitz gives the film a measured pace, stoking tension as the courtroom drama unfolds.
