South African writer-director Brad Katzen puts extra effort into trying to make his stoner comedy “Soweto Blaze” look and sound new and “fresh.”

The setting is a post-Apartheid Soweto, more affluent and generally unrest-free, with nicer homes and just a scattering of ruins.

The dialogue is mostly the local patois, some blend of Zulu and Sotho, some of it given the International Accent of Cannabis — “Rastafarian.”

Katzen uses split screens, simulated phone screens and jump cuts so often that when the film stops cold — freezes up — you wonder if that’s a stylistic choice, or a technical glitch via Netflix (the likely culprit).

And the closing credits are Indian cinema-inventive — still shots of the crowded set ID’ing every member of the crew and their job, as well as the mostly-unknown cast.

But all our intrepid filmmaker has done is revisit what one might assume are the American films of his 1990s childhood — “Friday,” the Urtext of modern stoner comedies, and the Alicia Silverstone kidnapping comedy “Excess Baggage.”

There are a couple of laughs in this one, mostly from the inept gunplay, the loopy situations, the characters and the stoner philosophy espoused by He who is the Most-stoned — “What if time is just an artificial construct?”

Yet the best praise one can summon for this South African stoner comedy is “Hope you do better next time.”

Mo (Matli Mohapeloa) is a low-rent pot dealer beloved for his wide and exotic selection of smokables — Dutch Treat, Skunk, etc.

Dill (Sydney Ndlovu) and his gal Pickle (Nyeleti Khoza) might be his most reliable customers. Aside from the local Rastafarian. But they never seem to pay.

That is an issue for the corrupt cop (Nhlanhla Mayisa) who has been shaking Mo down for years. The payoffs cut into Mo’s efforts to save up for his dream business, a mellow, maybe even cannabis-infused smoothie-dispensing food truck.

When he and Dill and Pickle lament their cash-poor status, and watch an interaction involving mobster Lebo the Lion (Sello Sebotsane), his albino henchwoman (Palesa Mosia) and his rebellious hottie of a daughter Thandi (Dimpho More), they joke about a ransom that could solve all their problems.

Next thing poor Mo knows, he comes home to find the two short-attention-span potheads have gone through with a kidnapping and stashed rash and furious Thandi in his house. As her daddy is a murderous thug, and as she’s stolen money from him in an effort to escape that life, Mo is in over his head, and we don’t have to ask “Deep what?” as to the substance he’s buried under.

Katzen tries to bedazzle this simple-enough set-up with interludes where Dill and Pickle put ads on TikTok that they’re looking for a short term rental (to stash Thandi), split screens that show us text messages but which never add up to an “LOL” and the point of view shifts as the dirty cop and the mobster’s apprentice hunt one and all down.

Dill & Pickle are the heart of the picture, but even together they don’t add up to one Chris Tucker, to use the “Friday” comparison.

The third act violence is (supposedly) non-lethal, and involves pistols and an AK 47 and “accidents.” Kind of funny.

I like the idea behind “Soweto Blaze,” and the attempts to give it all a little pizazz. And the setting and characters are novel. There just isn’t enough here that’s funny enough to carry this cannabis caper comedy across the finish line.

Rating: TV-MA, violence, drug abuse

Cast: Matli Mohapeloa, Dimpho More, Sydney Ndlovu, Nyeleti Khoza, Palesa Mosia, Nhlanhla Mayisa and Sello Sebotsane

Credits: Scripted and directed by Brad Katzen. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:35