I personally believe the story takes too long to get going, slow pacing, but I holistically love the conflicts, the choice of actors and the technical jargons. Maybe the techies are a bit too slow on their keyboard for my liking but I believe it will be cool to have seen an actual coded lines being live-previewed and some hungry fingers on a keyboard but the general idea is sellable, at least to me. Then there is the aeroplane scene; a hi-four to the vfx guys for that one. A bit too static with stagnant cloud but we get the idea.
Temi Odetola’s character, Zina, is supposed to be a mystery for someone who’s trying to evade the Nigerian authorities and exit the country but the first thing we see about her is Tech Girl branded T-shirt. Broo! The art direction crew probably slept on that one so no judgement there. Speaking of the art direction, the supposed police scene is never truly established and I have to guess my way through that. The Eko Hotel scene is powerful in terms of art direction but again then I struggle to understand the entire essence to the narrative itself. To make matters worse, the editor is not helping matters. Okay, let’s talk post down below...
The Editing approach is a bit awkward and I wouldn’t know if that is a sole discretion of the editor or that of the director. The flashback scenes are indistinguishable and confusing, and I have to assume my way through those part of the narrative. I get that storytellers try to avoid flashback scenes in recent years but the approach in this movie should be listed on top of The Top 100 ways of how not to use a flashback. The grading is awesome for me and the skin tones looks good for most of the time except where the lighting lets down the overall look.
The lighting is sufficiently terrible a number of times and the skin tones paid for it. Attention is not paid to lighting the darker skins and they appear crushed a number of times in scenes involving dark skin actors like Alibaba. On the part of cinematography, I could swear I notice distortion a couple of times, particularly near the beginning of the movie. I cannot tell if that is a creative choice or cinematography malfunction but those few scenes are largely disturbing for me. There are some awkward CAM movements as well that I feel could have been better. Some reaction shots are cool but some choice of lens at critical point of the story seems unjustified.
Sound is one of those few subject I am not equipped to talk about but I generally find it enjoyable. The dialogues are great and I find the scores enjoyable as well.
Last but probably the most important: Directing!
I will love to talk about the directing approach to the entire narrative but I am convinced I will be biased about that one. So, I will leave the directing review to you and maybe we can talk about it in person over lunch some other times. See below to see my general review rating of the movie.
Cinematography: 4
Lighting: 5
Grading: 7
Acting: 8
Directing: 7
Story: 5
Art direction: 6
Editing: 5
Sound: 7
See you soon!!
