Review of the movie: BROTHER JEKWU

The Brother Jekwu  (2016)

Cast: Mike Ezuruonye, Funny bone, Nedu, Wofai Fada, Klint D drunk,Huddah, Monroe, Juliet Ochieng,Sabina Stadler, Catherine Kamau, Derick Assetto, and Angela Okorie.

Director: Charles Uwagbai

Written: Mike Ezuruonye

Director of Photography: Austin Nwole

 

Synopsis:

Mike Ezurounye stars as ‘Brother Jekwu’, the village champion whom was looking for greener pastures, pushed his luck with his cousin ‘Kego’ who was believed to be working and living successfully abroad. It is on this note that Brother Jekwu leaves his familiar village as a champion and finds himself on an adventure to Kenya to learn the business he’s newly introduced to. Unknown to him, it will be a high risk business, working with a notorious gang and a ruthless female boss called ‘boss lady’ acted by former Miss Kenya, Juliet Ochieng.

Produced by Mike Ezurounye and Juliet Ochienge, the collaboration created a nice blend of culture, nationalities, tourism, sight and sounds into a whole big package while the movie was shot in Kenya and Nigeria. This movie gives you that feel of being a tourist in Kenya.

Also, starring alongside Mike is another Nollywood star, Angela Okorie and several other Kenyan actors, including socialite and first-time actor Huddah Monroe who rose to fame in 2014 after she clinched the coveted slot of representing Kenya in the BBA reality show in South Africa.

The movie Brother Jekwu is directed by an award winning director Charles Uwagbai, who also has another movie called ‘Breathless’ to his taping.

 

Review:

The opening plot had nice camera movement and as it progressed, one was compensated with some nice acting. The movie was laced with a couple of distracting content like the NairaBet subtle advert, also Nedu’s part where he brought out herb ‘agbo Jedi’ to drink while waiting for Funny bone to go bring his rent pay. These are some of the unnecessary part.

The NairaBet subtle advert did fit in, but not brilliantly .It was too predictable that it was an obvious  sponsored scene to pay some bills. It was not properly roped into the main script. Take for instance, when brother Jekwu came back from Kenya and went straight to NairaBet to redeem his win? It was too obvious that they were doing an advert.  But, in a nutshell it was a very nice way to advertise a brand.

 

Actors

Mike Ezuruoye brings yet another comic –inspired movie hoping to deliver a great comic relief. Going by the actors and delivery, Mike Ezuronye tried too hard to act funny from his so called earth quaking Grandma to his lousy village character, this all makes me feel its similar to some of Funke Akindele’s character in Jenifer.

Well, the movie had the opportunity to see all sorts of familiar and unfamiliar faces, but the Nigerian audience is introduced to a few new characters as well like Huddah Munroe and a whole lot.

One would see this as breaking boundaries. I salute Mike Ezuruonye for going out of the usual Nollywood circle.

We also saw fine delivery and performances here and there, from the old lady who wanted to sexually reap Jekwu apart, to the journey into the wild where he (Jekwu), while running for his dear life, came across an elderly couple who offered him a native alcoholic drink that got Jekwu to misbehave.

The movie however lives up to its billing with some hilarious scenes, like when Funny bone sold the story of Zakki Azzay using a touch light in the wretched room to Jekwu (but in that scene, Funny bone went over-board with his delivery), the scene of Jekwu meeting Klint the drunk in Kenya, the old lady admiring Jekwu, the mental institute when a giant thug dressed Jekwu up as a baby and treated him as one etc. These scenes were considered to be really funny.

With Angela Okorie, I considered her part to be well delivered.

For many of us who are not exactly Nollywood movie buffs, we can give the producer a pass mark that the movie did not exactly follow the usual predictable story line.

Also, technically, the movie utilised the outdoor or natural light and scenery well enough. Well edited, with great camera shots from the use of extreme long shots helped us appreciate the environment or location.

Music wise, there were lots of use of Nigerian dancehall songs which was nice enough and their transition from one scene to another was not as bad as we usually would see in most of our movies.

All in all, it’s worth seeing and I can say it was a lovely one from Mike Ezurounye.

 

This review was written by Gwendolyn Oshoniyi, the station manager, R2FM Ibadan.