by Tolu Omoyeni

When the Nigerian media went agog over the in-flight premiere of Kunle Afolayan‘s new movie, The CEO, some of us could bet with our pinkie finger that the movie would be the Hit of the Year 2016 especially since the filmmaker himself is the man behind some of the best and revolutionary Nollywood movies of the decade.

Then, we also saw the cast list and just assumed that we were in for a thrill. Bringing Hilda Dokubo back to the scene after a long hiatus has to be worthwhile. Bringing Grammy-award winning African artiste, Angelique Kidjo into a Naija movie means you’re not here to play. These and some other unfamiliar Oyibo names, we knew Oga Kunle is here to change the face of the game.

The movie was undeniably perfectly shot, brilliantly edited, actors put in work especially Hilda Dokubo who put in extra work as she tried to impress us with her comeback role and ended up overdoing things *rolls eyes*. Isn’t that why there’s usually a director on set? To assist actors in interpreting their roles? It’s okay to correct a veteran, Oga Kunle.

Cinematography and picture quality were top notch and we would not have had any less. Sound quality was superb, too. All these technicalities may have met up to expectations, but Nigerians want and deserve a good storyline and a strong plot.

As with a few of Kunle Afolayan’s past movies, there’s always an urgent need to wrap up the story that everything begins to feel rushed, predictable and mostly confusing.

Using crooked means to arrive at a plot conclusion is rude; your audience are not stupid and we need lucid explanations for what happened to whom and why. Stop doing wuru wuru to the answer. We still remember how Nse Ikpe-Etim and Wale Ojo flew mistook each other’s phones and ended up on wrong flights. No one would make such silly mistakes in real life. It’s not Spongebob Squarepants.

Open-ended scenes might be new in Nigerian films and leaving questions on the minds of the audience might be a style for Kunle Afolayan but too many unanswered questions can leave us more upset than inquisitive.

For every review I’ve come across on the movie, there’s been a lot of “buts” and “could haves”. The economy is hard as it is and it’s unfair on us to have to sit through another puzzling two hours of what is supposed to calm our nerves and help us forget our worries. If you have loose N1500 that you’re not using, you might take it to the cinema to see this movie but if not, sit at home and watch African Magic.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

Oreoluwa Peters