We recently did a study on Nigerian movies to understand why many don’t make it to the cinema. Even though most Nigerian movies are made around the same budget, some are specifically ranked as low budget such as ‘The Will of God’.
It is easy to see why that is, as marketing is often the costliest part of film production and most people just take the easy way out. Though they don’t get cinema releases, are these movies good enough for your time?
Well, we will try to balance movies in this category with those that go out to the cinema. There are a number of these less popular Nollywood movies that many still consider good. ‘The Will of God‘ is one of those and we like to revisit the purpose of a Nigerian movie like that.
In this movie, a Nigerian husband has but his morals to keep drama from tearing his family down. Time is of the essence for him and even with a stable financial life, he needs a brilliant idea to win. Money may not be able to get him that kind of brilliance, virtue will.
Why many Nigerian movies are ranked down
‘The Will of God’ is a two-part movie and the cast did well with their characters. Azubuike (Ken Erics), is entangled with two women, – Mercy a street girl whom Racheal Okonkwo carefully interprets and Eve Essien, Gloria.
In the first few minutes of the movie, you love the unique plot playing out. Then you find yourself hoping that the rest of the story will deliver a less likely circumstance. The intended plot eventually became pronounced a few minutes in and it begins to bear the same cliches as most Nollywood movies.
Then the director clearly misses his direction in the middle and contrasted the entire plot. Exposing more of Gloria’s defective attitude to that of Mercy’s charismatic appeal. This caused some kind of void and disconnection in the entire plot. Moreso, Azubuike who the entire plot is tied to could only be described in one word – idle.
The last switch into a Bollywood form also didn’t seat well. It seemed like an unnecessary improvisation to put Mercy and Azubuike in Indian fashion. It was also very confusing and mediocre than exciting and it is simply not our style in Africa. That is a fail in what’s African in Nollywood movies.
That did some damage to the whole story and everything else sort of fell through from there.
It is a typical Nigerian drama, which shows profound backwardness, especially in marriages. The movie might be worth your time if you have an open mind and crave new stories, no matter how terrible.
In an effort to understand why there’s so much difference in Nollywood movies, we might be unto something.
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