Okay, if you haven’t seen the Nigerian Movie, Fifty by Mo Abudu, the host of Moments with Mo, then you should. I have seen it obviously and here are fifty things about the movie, fifty.
1. The movie fifty was made by Mo Abudu, marking her fiftieth birthday. She wrote the story and footed the bill
2. The movie fifty claims to be about a week in the lives of four women played by Ireti Doyle, Dakore Akande, Omoni Oboli, Nse ikpe Etim.
3. The storylines for the four women are not entirely new but with the acting prowess of the four actresses, and the little twist here and there in the plot, it made the film laudable. The storylines isn’t exactly new, there is betrayal, blind faith in God and Religion, secrets and revelation, marital problems and then a lot of glamour in between.
4. Speaking about acting prowess, Ireti Doyle, played a character Elizabeth a fun seeking, no dull moment career woman, that also has a love for contemporary artwork and young handsome blood. It was exciting to see ireti doyle come out of her shell after playing typical typecast roles in shows like Tinsel to deliver a stella performance. Actress in a leading role award nomination would be well deserved for this Ireti Doyle.
5. Still on Stella performances, another lady in guest role, played tola’s (Dakore Akande) mother and appeared in just one scene. But right there and then she depicted a wide range of emotion while simply sitting on a leather sofa, much more than most lead actresses would depict in a 3 hours Nollywood movie. She went from surprise, to shock , to anger, to fear, optimism, to vulnerability, to frustration, to calmness within few minutes making it all believable. Her emotions was as a result of a buildup of occurrences up until that time and marrying them into one scene with words and facial expression was simply ecstatic.
6. Cinematography was totally on point, and I mean excellent. It’s rare for a Nollywood movie to have such internationally standard cinematography and all kudos go to Malcom Mclean on this one, which begs the question, what are our Film production schools littered all over lagos teaching exactly?. One spectacular scene successfully captured the Night life of Lagos right before the African Shrine scene .
7. Emmanuel Ikubese’ ass, normally there should be a twitter page for Emmanuel Ikubese’s ass where all other asses can come and pay respect. Most Nollywood films are known to sheer away from Nudity and when they don’t , it is often done distastefully. This was perfect.
8. The pace of the story was however slow, and suspense was greatly sacrificed. The sequence of scenes and scripts had nothing in them to really specify that it all went down in one week. Initially it all seem to follow with the beginning scenes , where time and night shots were shown but it just fell off as the film progressed.
9. I would expect that the lekki-ikoyi bridge be given appearance credits (lol)and paid as a special guest as it was over featured in the film and to think that it has absolutely no significance to the story was disappointing except we consider the time where ireti doyle’s character made a U turn at the roundabout before the bridge.
10. The use of Extras for the movie was also on point. Most Nigerian movies are usually devoid of extras which makes the whole film look like a video drama. The movie fifty was able to tell us , that life as we know it is continuously moving, people are buying and selling, getting married, living their lives, going for night shows and what not and these four women just happen to be amongst all of them.
11. The movie fifty was not completely free from Cliché that has constantly plagued Nigerian movies, one of them especially is the throwing up to signify that a character is pregnant. Not all women throw up when pregnant and it was just an easy way out to tell a story which could have been told in better ways.
12. Still on clichés, can we find another way of finding out that your significant other is cheating on you, that doesn’t involve forgetting something at home and going back to get it. Considering the fact that it has been overused in Nigerian Movies and the chances of getting caught that way is very slim in reality.
13. Character development was very good in the movie fifty. The four women had jobs, we knew where they lived, what they did, their hobbies, they were not one sided characters.
14. Even though, the characters were well developed, Dakore Akande’s costume was kind of hideous compared to the classy, very expensive chic, she was portraying, even Mo Abudu wears better clothes on her show.
15. Audio Production was excellent for a typical Nigerian movie. Here ambient noise was depicted, voice from the other room, the sounds of everything was incorporated, something very rare in Nigerian films.
16. However, the voice over the phone of dakore akande’s character to Etim was not professionally done.
17. Conversations were somewhat melodramatic. Only Ireti Doyle and tola’s mum was able to completely come out of that way of speaking synonymous to Nigerian Movies and telemundo soap operas where the speech is a little too slow for reality and the expressions are often exaggerated, making the viewers’ brain an unnecessary accessory for such films.
18. The Scripts could use a little improvement here and there, however Ireti doyle and omoni oboli’s characters clash was a scene made in movie heaven.
19. Facts checking fell a little flat where Nse Etim’s character who attends a Pentecostal church was all of a sudden praying in her home with a little statue of Mary and doing the whole catholic kind of prayers. In Nigeria, Pentecostal and catholic mode of prayer and worship is like day and night. Nse Etim couldn’t have attended a Pentecostal church and come back home to become catholic.
20. However the paintings hung in Nse Etim’s home was simply splendid.
21. Nse Etim by the way needs to talk to the people that cast her in roles because I have seen Nse play this vulnerable, self-righteous, long suffering wife more than I care to count.
22. Still on Nse Etim, her tears by the dozen was poorly edited in one scene with Ireti Doyle where she was teary eyed in one frame and fully plastered with tears in the next frame, everyone in the cinema gasped, it was too obvious , it was laughable.
23. I don’t care about morals to a story, but I couldn’t get my mind off the fact, that in the case of this Nigerian movie, it was simply sleep with another woman’s husband and he would leave his family and everything and marry you.
24. The Dakore Akande and Nse etim accusation Scene was so unrealistic, I don’t even know how they could have fixed it.
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| This Particular scene was so unrealistic |
25. There were a lot of performances in the film, as the producers ensured that fifty is a star studded film but only Nneka and King sunny Ade’s performances could pass for live performances and this had to do with the Audio production. The other live performances felt like music videos.
26. The party scene where the song “shake body ” was used is hands down the best party scene ever in a Nigerian Movie, it captured the mood and lights of the party venue and the scene buildup into the hook of the song was excellent.
27. The Dakore Akande and her son scene which was supposed to be really mind blowing and somewhat of a climax for her character, just passed by.
28. The Film ended where it could easily have a continuation , so we can have fifty two in a few months time, and fifty six later on, just like Adele names her albums.
29. Don’t get me wrong, the film ended.
30. Overall, the film was well produced , mostly well acted, directed and executed and it could be said to be a pace setter for Nigerian films hoping to make international quality films.
31- 50. I’ll be dammed if I have 20 more things to write about this movie.
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