Sweet ’n Short

On his 40th birthday, Sweet Coetzee is honored with an award for 20 years as a sportscaster in South Africa. He beats rival George Weedle at the ceremony, triggering Weedle's professional envy. The moment sets up the rivalry that drives much of the film's conflict.

After a raucous birthday party, Sweet fouls up a sportscast and is demoted by his boss, Bryce Williams. He is moved to an interviewer role while Weedle receives the promotion. The humiliation forces Sweet into increasingly reckless behavior.

The film introduces two robbers, Bossy and Savage, whose capers are a running comic thread. The main characters remain largely oblivious to them as the duo robs and schemes around the edges of Sweet's world. Their mischief foreshadows later trouble.

Sweet pulls a prank on Weedle during a golf game, provoking anger and professional retaliation. As punishment, he is suspended for six months, removing him from on-air duties. The suspension deepens his sense of grievance and desperation.

Sweet secretly records Weedle having an affair with a prostitute known as the Orphan in a Storm. The footage becomes leverage for Sweet's later schemes, exposing Weedle's hypocrisy. The recording marks a shift toward more underhanded tactics.

To drown his sorrows, Sweet goes to a casino where he meets Alfred Shorty Short, a precocious boy he tricks into thinking he's a genie. The moment offers Sweet a whimsical respite from his troubles but foreshadows the wild ride ahead.

Bossy and Savage attempt a casino robbery while Sweet is distracted by his new illusion. The disco ball is smashed during the chaos, knocking Sweet unconscious as he hits the jackpot. The incident shatters his certainty and sets off a chain of consequences.

Sweet falls into a coma as South Africa has transformed into a democracy, marking a radical societal shift. Shorty visits the hospital, then helps abduct the genie and flee with the casino's cash as Bossy and Savage steal wages. The world changes while Sweet lies in stasis.

Sweet awakens and, along with Shorty, flees to avoid the criminal fallout after the robbery and wage heists. They end up at a rugby match where Weedle is commenting, realizing they are fugitives for Shorty's loot. They head toward the Transvaal in disguise.

In the Transvaal, Sweet experiences a memory flash at a slot machine that reconnects him to his old life. The sense that he might reclaim what he lost pushes him toward a final confrontation with Weedle.

Sweet reunites with Sandy and uses the Weedle tape to strike a deal: if Weedle's Cowboys win, the jackpot will be returned publicly; otherwise Sweet will destroy all copies of the tape and disappear from Weedle's life. With Sandy and Shorty's help, they hatch a plan to disrupt the Cowboys by planting items around the game and by Sweet disguising himself as a paramedic to influence players.

During the final rugby match, Sweet pretends to be a Cowboy named Raymond and plays to sabotage the game. A head injury from a backfiring trick triggers amnesia, so he briefly forgets his identity but later regains it as the play unfolds. Bossy and Savage keep interfering, and the sequence culminates with Sweet regaining his jackpot in a surprising turn of events. In a final twist, Sweet wakes up and discovers that the disco ball incident and much of the earlier chaos were all a dream, and he confesses to Sandy and Shorty that he loves them both, calling it a hell of a dream.