The gangster who made good
He turned his back on a life of crime yet Randall is still a gangster – but this time on the big screen
AS HE walks down the street curtains twitch and his neighbours crane their necks, eager to catch a glimpse of him. Young girls peek around corners, looking starstruck as they stare at the man everyone’s talking about.
How times have changed. A few years ago people would have gone out of their way to avoid Randall Majiet – back then, as a member of one of the most feared gangs on the Cape Flats, he broke into cars, sold drugs, smuggled guns and was high and out of it most of the time.
Miraculously after almost two decades of gangsterism and drug addiction Randall (37) managed to clean up his act. But he hasn’t turned his back on his past completely – he’s using his seedy memories to portray gangsters on the big screen. And he’s been doing it so convincingly that roles have been falling into his lap.
First came a small part in the South African drama Four Corners (2013), directed by Ian Gabriel, in which he was cast as a gangster named Bantam who was a member of the notorious Numbers gang.
It was a small role but soon led to bigger things. When French director Jérôme Salle was looking for a local to play Kat, a fear- some gang leader in his new movie, City Of Violence, based on the book Zulu by Caryl Férey, Randall was the obvious choice. Before he knew it, the father-of-two found himself rubbing shoulders with The Lord Of The Rings hottie Orlando Bloom and Oscar winner Forest Whitaker.
The big-budget crime thriller, which is now on circuit, is set in Cape Town and revolves around two police officers on a mission to track down the murderer of a teenage girl. It explores the scars inflicted by apartheid as well as the devastating toll the drug scourge has on communities.
This is something Randall has experienced first-hand. He knows only too well how mandrax, tik and heroin can hijack lives, robbing young people of all their hopes and dreams.
HIS childhood was a happy one. Growing up in a loving home in Mitchells Plain, Randall had a strong male role model in the form of his dad, Abraham, who worked in the army as a VIP bodyguard and had a well-paying job at the Castle Of Good Hope in Cape Town. “Dad gave us everything. We didn’t want for anything. We had a happy family but I didn’t appreciate it at the time,” Randall recalls.