The Gods Must Be Crazy II 1990

Xi and his San tribe live happily in the Kalahari Desert, away from industrial civilization. One day, a glass Coca-Cola bottle is thrown out of an aeroplane by a pilot and falls to the ground unbroken. Initially, Xi’s people assume the bottle to be a gift from their gods, just as they believe plants and animals are, and find many uses for it. Unlike other gifts, however, there is only one glass bottle, which causes unforeseen conflict within the tribe. As a result, Xi decides to make a pilgrimage to the edge of the world and dispose of the divisive object.

Along the way, Xi encounters biologist Andrew Steyn, who is studying the local wildlife; Steyn’s assistant and mechanic, M’pudi; Kate Thompson, a woman who quit her job as a journalist in Johannesburg to become a village school teacher; and eventually a band of fugitive guerrillas led by Sam Boga. In the fictitious state Biryani, northwest of Botswana, Boga’s men have killed three cabinet members and injured two others in an attempt on the president’s life, sending the military in hot pursuit.

Steyn is tasked with bringing Thompson to the village where she will teach, but he is awkward and clumsy around her. Their Land Rover stalls while trying to ford a deep river; he hoists it out with a winch, but it continues lifting the vehicle to a very high treetop level while a forgetful Steyn is distracted extricating Thompson from a wait-a-bit tree. She more than once mistakes his attempts to evade wild animals, and putting out an evening campfire, as advances towards her. Eventually, a snobbish safari tour guide named Jack Hind arrives and takes Thompson the rest of the way to the village.

One day, Xi happens upon a herd of goats and, believing them to be wild animals, shoots one with a tranquilizer arrow, planning to eat it. The goatherd has him arrested, and he is sentenced to jail. M’pudi, who once lived with the San and can speak their language, is discontent with the verdict. He and Steyn arrange to hire Xi as a tracker for the remainder of his sentence in lieu of prison time, and teach Xi how to drive Steyn’s Land Rover. Meanwhile, the guerrillas invade Thompson’s school, taking her and the students as hostages as they make their escape to a neighbouring country.

Steyn, M’pudi and Xi, immersed in their fieldwork, find that they are along the terrorists’ and children’s path. They manage to immobilize six of the eight guerrillas using makeshift tranquilizer darts launched by Xi with a miniature bow, allowing Thompson and the children to confiscate the guerillas’ firearms. Steyn and M’pudi apprehend the remaining two guerrillas by frightening one with a snake and by shooting at a tree above the other, causing latex to drip from the tree and irritate his skin. Hind arrives and takes Thompson and the children away, taking credit for the rescue that Steyn, M’pudi and Xi had actually planned and executed.

Later, with Xi’s term over, Steyn pays his wages and sends him on his way. Having never seen money before, Xi discards it. Steyn and M’pudi then drive from their camp to visit Thompson, where Steyn attempts to explain his tendency to be uncoordinated in her presence, but accidentally and repeatedly knocks over a number of objects in the process. Thompson finds his efforts endearing, and kisses Steyn.

Xi eventually arrives at the top of a cliff with a solid layer of low-lying clouds obscuring the landscape below. Convinced that he has reached the edge of the world, he throws the bottle off the cliff and returns to his family.