Mshika-Shika (DVD)

Mshika-shika is a South African crime drama television series produced by Dv8 Films which explores familyon both sides of the law following a carjacking of a senior politician's daughter's BMW in Mayfair, Johannesburg, and examining how separating the good from the bad is not as easy as it once was.One Sunday night, charismatic West-Jozi gang-star Scarra (Mxolisi Majozi) and his two sidekicks, wizened Judas (Dom Gumede) and new kid on the block Mafikizolo (Thato Dhladla III), jack a brand new 3-series BMW out of a parking lot where a wedding is taking place.The car was a gift by a senior politician, Buthelezi, to his daughter on her wedding day. Although car-theft is common in the area, what makes this case different is that the attention of local politicians is drawn and the police are told to use the criminals as scapegoats in the eyes of the media.When handsome, brooding Detective Phaka (Richard Lukunku) learns of the docket, he presses Schoeman (David Clatworthy), the Commander of the local police station, to give him and his no-nonsense forensic partner, Kea Thole (Terri Ann Eckstein), the case.Phaka is determined to get to the bottom of it in double quick time as his long-gestating promotion hinges on it.Scarra stole the car because he knows wheel-chair bound Bonsai (Arthur Molepo), the neighbourhood Godfather, will pay good money for it. He celebrates his payday by spending time with his working-girl girlfriend, Shirley Dlamini (Busisiwe Mtshali).Meanwhile, Judas is becoming an increasingly frustrated figure as he feels he is overworked and underpaid. He begins to plot his own criminal path without Scarra knowing about it.Using intuitive methods Phaka and Kea identify who the main suspects are but without any real firm evidence fail to make it stick. Schoeman, mid-stream, suddenly tells them to drop the case altogether.A bemused Phaka vows to not let the case go and over the course of the series it becomes an obsession he can't shake. What he doesn't know is that inadvertently what started out as a fairly standard case of car theft.