A Dry White Season (1989)

Plot:  In South Africa, a wealthy white man tries to hold the police accountable for the death of his gardener's son - and finally understands the evil nature of apartheid.
Stars:  Marlon Brando, Donald Sutherland,  Janet Suzman

Lets be honest the only reason to watch this movie is Marlon Brando.  Apartheid is dead and buried and Dry White Season is just a dated 30 year old propaganda film. Of course, some political films have lasting value, for example: Battle of Algiers, Triumph of the Will or  In the Heat of the Night -but this isn't one of them.  It has mediocre direction, a paint-by-the-numbers script and way too much of dull, stone-faced Donald Sutherland.  Further, the oppressed blacks should have been the main story, not the white family. Which brings us to Brando:

Brando's Performance

 Once again the Academy showed its undying love for Brando by giving him a "Best Supporting Actor" nomination for a two-scene 15 minutes performance.  Playing a barrister with an English  accent, Brando does an impersonation of Charles Laughton from Witness for the Prosecution.  He even has Laughton's girth, having achieved Land-whale status and requiring a cane. In his first scene (four minutes), he sits behind a desk and discourages Sutherland from hiring him.  His other scene, in a Courtroom, has him battling the trial judge and unfriendly witnesses with sarcasm and irony. Surprisingly, Brando doesn't have a big speech (note: because it was cut, see below). Brando is excellent, but it’s a standard  “Lawyer Role”  and a dozen British actors could have done as well.

I suspect, one reason Brando acted so little after the age 55 is he realized the thing that made him so special was gone.  When young, Brando was a unique combination of  leading man charisma/sexiness with great acting ability.  But old age takes its toll, and after 1979 Brando was just another “old, very good actor”.

Why Brando Did the Role

Politics. Brando was deeply committed to the anti-apartheid cause, and this film lured him out of an eight year semi-retirement. Doing the film for union scale, he donated his usual "11 points of the gross" to charity.  

Brando Unhappy with the Film

Sadly, he clashed with the black female Director, claiming she was a "headstrong neophyte" who "had offered him no direction".  Upset that his long, ad-libbed,  anti-apartheid speech had been cut, (it ended with Brando being dragged from the courtroom) Brando demanded a re-cut, and was willing to pay for it. When this offer was refused, he called the MGM executive-in-charge, and attacked him.  This resulted in the MGM Exec calling the Police, claiming Brando had threatened to "Blow up him and his entire family".       

Brando then followed up with letters to MGM (see Autobiography) - again asserting the picture was unsatisfactory and needed to be re-cut.  Per Brando:

"I've never put more of myself in a film, nor suffered more while doing it, and never received so little recompense...in 35 years of film-making...let me honk my own horn. I have been in thirty-plus pictures, almost all of them financially successful. Some went through the roof. Some I directed. From early on, I have directed my own stuff...Please give me a chance to exercise over 30 years of experience in films"

Of course, Brando had only directed One-eyed jacks. Not "Some" movies.  And MGM no doubt remembered Brando's disastrous editing of that film.  His letters went unanswered. The film wasn't re-cut.