I saw this movie for three reasons:
1. The awards it earned at the AMVCA 2016
2. My new favorite movie star Adesua Etomi was in it.
3. All the media hype it got
But in all honesty, i think this movie was just there…boring and not so brilliant…it was over hyped!
Storyline:
Newly
married Major Egan (Tope Tedela) is to compelled by unforeseen
circumstances to leave his wife, Lebari (Adesua Etomi) for a
peace-keeping mission in a fictional African country, where he is
severely wounded and left for dead, but Gina (Linda Ejiofor) runs into
him, nursing him to stability. He then returns home to face untold
troubles.
The background sound, acting, use of accent and make up was point, whoever was in charge of the makeover did a good job in transforming the major characters and yea, the characters especially Daniel K. Daniel aka Bossman played out his role well, bravo. Asides that, nothing else impressed me that much.
When the movie started with a
scene where Egan (Tope Tedela) bids Lebari (Adesua Etomi) a reluctant goodbye, it made me imagine how
traumatizing it must be for the families of combatants to say goodbye to
these soldiers, uncertain if their loved ones will ever return…BUT the movie soon veered into a tale that exposes the atrocious activities
of a rebel group, which is not bad in itself save for the fact that the
variant of the English language invented by the producers of the film is
laughable, at best.
Why,
indeed, do the people of that fictional country have an accent; which
turns out to be utterly inconsistent in usage; especially by Bossman
(Daniel K. Daniel) and Gina (Linda Ejiofor)? Edwin (Olumide Oworu) is
praised for being quite consistent in his usage of the irritating
accent; Oworu will definitely make a mark in his chosen vocation.
Linda Ejiofor kept mixing up her accent
and switching between Nigerian English and the supposed accent, it was
annoying. Also, the main character, Tope Tedela was too gentle
for the role he was cast for…besides I could barely hear what he was
saying, his voice was low. At some point, there had to be a subtitle on
the screen for the viewers to understand what he was saying.
Also. the viewer is not allowed to follow Lebari’s emotions as she leaves her
husband for Col. Bello. Does he coerce her, does she fall for his
gimmicks or is she enthusiastic about the relationship? What about
introducing another contender for Lebari’s love; perhaps a suave,
well-to-do young man, thereby letting the viewers see if Bello will edge
his rival out or take him out? That sequence would have been intriguing
and revealing if it had been well written and enacted.
Frankie Ogar, the director of A Soldier’s Story
dispenses with the opportunity of telling a remarkable tale though he
had a gripping idea before him. The failure to write a stimulating
screenplay is Ogar’s greatest undoing because it actually requires a lot
of endurance to sit and watch this 114-minute film to the end. It took me two days to watch….
It
is difficult to equate the dissatisfaction that one feels when one sees
an otherwise captivating story that ends up not realizing its potential
in any art form, but this discontentment is aggravated when a motion
picture director fails to make his art picturesque. This is the fate of A Soldier’s Story, the adventures of Egan and Gina.
Additional Info: 360nobs