Movie of the Week
Rogue – Out now on Showmax
A new MultiChoice-produced film features Megan Fox as a mercenary whose team gets trapped in Africa during a mission. Little do they know they are being hunted by a lioness.
Showmax has just released Rogue, starring Teen Choice winner and People’s Choice nominee Megan Fox (Transformers, Jennifer’s Body) as Sam O’Hara, who leads a team of mercenaries on a mission to rescue an ambassador’s daughter kidnapped by al-Shabaab. When their plan goes south, the mercenaries find themselves out of ammo and hiding out at an abandoned lion farm, having to defend themselves against both the kidnappers and an angry lion.
MJ Basset (Power, Strike Back, Ash vs Evil Dead) directs the action-adventure film, which also stars Philip Winchester (Strike Back), Adam Deacon (Casualty), and South African stars Jessica Sutton (Motherland: Fort Salem), Sisanda Henna (Trackers), Brandon Auret (District 9), Kenneth Fok (Warrior) and Greg Kriek (Black Mirror), one of South Africa’s busiest actors, with over 50 international screen credits to his name.
While Megan has turned down numerous military films since Transformers, she accepted Rogue partly because of the attraction of coming to Africa. “I felt like my life was going to change going to Africa,” Fox told New York Daily News. “And I didn’t know why; I just knew that I had to do this project for some reason.”
As Basset told Refinery29, “[I wanted] to make Megan credible, rather than this sex object that she’s so frequently used for by male filmmakers… I said, ‘There’s no romance in here; you’re not wearing skimpy T-shirts or short-shorts. You’re carrying full battle rattle, and I’m going to expect you to get dirty and bruised.’ She was quite excited by that.”
As The Guardian wrote about Rogue, “If hit Netflix documentary Tiger King had you championing the big cat cause, here’s the animal rights-respecting action-thriller you should watch next.” They called it “an energetic action thriller” where “the action rattles along”.
The award-winning South African crew includes South African Film and Television Award winners Brendan Barnes as director of photography; Waldemar Coetsee as production designer; and Theola Booyens as hair and makeup designer.
The SA-UK film is a co-production between MultiChoice, Capstone and Mannequin, with Lionsgate Home Entertainment handling distribution in North America.
