Hands Up: Arresting questions with Lehasa Moloi

In Hands Up, in just one day, daring thief Siphokazi (Luyolo Mngonyama) pulls off the two biggest heists of her young life – scoring a bag full of diamonds, and stealing the heart of an honest detective named Thabo (Lehasa Moloi). She even seems to give her Gucci gangster partner in crime, Magolide (Ishmauel Songo), the slip. One year later, though, Magolide slithers back into her life with a combination of charm and menace. How long can Siphokazi keep the plates spinning before everything comes crashing down?

Showmax Original movie Hands Up will keep you guessing. But if you want to solve a mystery, find an honest cop. We spoke with Lehasa Moloi about what Hands Up is really about, and what’s at the heart of Thabo’s surprising choices…

It’s a love story

“The real heart of the story is with Siphokazi, it’s her coming of age story. We see how coming of age can look for someone who is finding themselves, someone who has an ambition to not just do well in life, but to do that with someone else – to fall in love,” says Lehasa. “It's really a love story. And with love, it's never straightforward. The challenges are very evident in the story.”

Irreconcilable differences

Thabo and Siphokazi’s romance is challenged by a discovery that splits them down to the foundations. Thabo wasn’t kidding around when he chose to be a cop, and he wasn’t kidding around when he chose Siphokazi. So one year into their relationship, when he uncovers something that truly shakes how he sees her, he’ll wish life had a pause button. What do you do when two of the deepest loyalties of your life come into conflict?

“It's a tricky one, says Lehasa. “I've been married for ten years, and you come to realise how different both you and your partner were before you got married, and after. A lot of people believe that once you get married, it's the happy ending, and it's gonna be all sunshine and roses. But everything that you know – up until the point that you get married – is all that you know. That gets you to the altar. At the altar you are actually saying yes to everything that you don't know. And you don't know so much about your partner! Funnily enough, they don't know so much about themselves, either. So, five-six-seven-eight years into the marriage, you can realise who this person has become, and it's completely different to who you invested in in the beginning. On one level, you feel like, ‘I didn't marry this person, what’s going on?’ But on another level, you realise what commitment truly means. It means loving who the person is becoming, as much as you did the person that you said yes to.”

Lehasa was able to apply that directly to what Thabo’s going through in Hands Up.

"I was figuring out where he stood on almost every issue: are you going to love this person through this, or are you gonna run away?” he asks. “I had to allow that to be an honest answer from the character. That is a debate that happens within everyone. You have to be honest. (So as Thabo), ‘I'm pissed that this person has done this to me! How could they do this?’ That's very honest. And you have to embrace that, as much as you have to embrace the forgiveness part of it and the reconciliation. That debate was very strong in most moments for me,” Lehasa reveals.

Watch the trailer for Hands Up

Devil at my shoulder

As well as Luyolo Mngonyama’s performance showing us Siphokazi’s obvious conflict between self-preservation and true love, writer-director Thapelo Motloung spotlights her personal tug of war in every confrontation scene between Lehasa and Ishmauel Songo’s chalk-and-cheese characters, Thabo and Magolide.

“Oh, he was such a challenge!” Lehasa says with delight. “Not just as the character but even trying to keep up with Ish as an actor. It's something that a lot of actors don't acknowledge. But when you're being ‘classed’, it's like, ‘Man, I have to step my game up.’ I really needed to and I think I did. We really had fun with it.”

Lehasa reveals that as far as appearance and charisma goes, Ishmauel could slip into Magolide’s shoes as if they were his own. ”It's such a strange thing, because he is my co-lead. But when you see Ish outside of the character, he is exactly the same as the character! I hope he doesn't take it the wrong way, but when I saw him at the cast read-through – and that was the first time I’d met him – I was like, ‘This guy is … interesting’. He was dressed in designer clothing, and he had the swagger. It wasn't something he had to put on. We were also shocked at how naturally, how honestly, he knew this character. He just knew exactly who Magolide was and had no qualms playing him in any way, shape or form. So it was such a perfect antagonistic force to Thabo and the greater goodness about him. It was just so, so easy to play good, because Ish was playing bad.”

Beyond cops & robbers

Hands Up is also the story of a cop going beyond a playground cops & robbers games, as he watches the woman he loves desperately try to navigate a way out her past.

“There’s one central question that I generally ask myself with a lot of the films that I like, and the type of programming that I watch. And that's, really, who are these people?” reveals Lehasa. “People have a one-sided perspective that criminals are bad, and they only do bad things and they don't care about anyone. So that was something I really had to peel back, both for myself and for Thabo. If he's fallen in love with someone who's in hot water, someone who has made big mistakes with her life, does he see it as that? Or has he convicted her in his mind, because of who he is?” Lehasa asks.

“He's this truth-seeking, justice-seeking workaholic, for lack of a better word. His job encompasses who he is. So he’s in a situation where he's vulnerable enough to open himself up, but then he finds himself betraying his honest pursuit of justice that he's committed himself to. So what does that look like? And why does he do that? Why does he allow this criminal into his heart? And why doesn't he just close the door when he finds out the truth?”

“When we found those answers, it gave me a better insight into who it is that we see on the news. These are actual people with actual families with actual backgrounds and goals and ambitions. Sometimes they do make mistakes, like we all do. It’s about finding that commonality and common ground for both Thabo and Siphokazi. And even for Magolide. You have to see a human in him eventually, on some level,” insists Lehasa.

Just one last question…

There are a couple of fascinating details to watch for in Hands Up, which will either have you nodding your head at a tragic-comic level of realism in the story – given the news recently – or looking for answers within the characters…

When Magolide rocks up at Thabo and Siphokazi’s engagement party, one year into both their relationship and the diamond heist case – which is the biggest case of Thabo’s career – Magolide is straight up wearing the evidence! And detective Thabo doesn’t notice, even as he clocks Magolide as a party crasher. “Character wise at the time he's going through a lot. He just proposed, and he's being thrown completely new information with a new character. So I didn't even realise that!” Lehasa muses, smiling.

I know that face!

Look out for…

• Ishmauel Songo as Mpande Zulu in The Wife and Zipho in Expiry Date
• Lehasa Moloi as Oupa in Rockville and Dr. Prince in The Republic season 2
• Luyolo Mngonyama as one of the Serpentine Elementals in Blood Psalms
• And Thapelo “Tabz” Motloung directing Insika, Laduma, Umnisamvula, and Gog’Shezi’s Christmas