Movie Review: The Guest
Screenwriters: Foluke Olaniyi, Christian Olayinka
Cinematographer: Richard Mabiaku
Production Designer: Foluke Olaniyi
Sound Engineers: Tolulope Oluwabiyi, Solanke Olusola
Producers: Foluke Olaniyi, Rita Dominic
Assistant Director: Adebode Olawale
Director: Christian Olayinka
CAST
Rita Dominic
Femi Jacobs
Somkele Idhalama
Andrea Chika Chukwu
Chamberlain Okoro
Neville Ossai
Florence Paul
Lekan Kolawole
Production Studios: The Audrey Silva Company, Banner Films, FilmArt Farm Workshop, Christian Olayinka Company
Distribution Company: Silverbird Distribution
Release Date: February 3, 2017
Runtime: 120 minutes
Genre: Romantic Thriller
Rating: R16 (Sexual Content, Violence, Strong Language)
Language: English
Country: Nigeria
SYNOPSIS
"The Guest" tells the tale of the ill-fated love triangle between Bill (Femi Jacobs), Lola (Somkele Idhalama) and Nikki (Rita Dominic).
Bill, Lola, and Nikki were friends from their undergraduate days. Back then, Nikki refused Bill's love advances towards her. She soon traveled to the UK. And Lola ended up getting married to Bill.
Years later, Bill and Lola's marriage becomes devoid of passion; an aftermath of Lola's total focus on her business career ambitions.
Nikki is soon deported back to Nigeria from the UK. And Lola invites her to come and stay in her home for as long as she wants.
A bitter and jealous Nikki seizes the opportunity to try re-igniting Bill's love her. As soon as Lola travels for a business trip, Nikki begins to execute her malicious plan...by seducing him. And from this point, everything spirals out of control!
CRITIQUE
The Good
The Cast looked the part. The actors all looked the respective parts they were to play. But did they play the part?
The concept on which the movie's plot was built, was a premise with so much promise.
The cinematography was good. The visual quality was crisp and clear. The lighting was also commendable.
With regards to the performance of the actors, Chamberlain Okoro, who is a newbie to the Big Screen, did his best to play his role as Jimmy, the thoughtful best friend of Bill. He had a decent performance. However, the way he ducked for cover behind the Police Officer when Nikki whipped out a pistol and aimed it at him, was totally epic and hilarious! You only get to such antics in comedies. To be frank, The Guest should be termed a Tragicomedy. It's nothing like a thriller.
Somkele Idhalama is gradually worming her way into the hearts of cinephiles in Nigeria, with her great performances. Whilst her performance in The Guest was no where near her performance in Steve Gukas's 2016 Drama/Thriller, 93 Days. She still gave a decent account of herself.
The way she played her role as the naïve, enterprising, trusting, and almost silly Lola, was quite believable. At least a lot of the audience in the cinema hall empathized with her character. She really got to them!
The Bad
The sound was not of Dolby Digital full surround stereo hi-fi quality. At some point in the movie, the sound became very low, for a handful of minutes. I could barely hear the dialogues.
The plot started out well but lost it at the end of the second act. The third act twist that was supposed to lead to the conflict resolution was poorly scripted.
The banter in the final scenes between Bill and Nikki, went on for far too long. It was just too stretched! Lola marching into the living room where Bill was held hostage by Nikki, unarmed, and without a police officer shielding her, was just too incredulous. There were Police Officers outside laying siege for Nikki. Why didn’t one of them just accompany Lola into the living room? In real life situations, Lola would have been gunned down by Nikki, for such foolhardiness. So I wonder why it was portrayed otherwise.
There were just too many incredulous actions taken by Nikki towards the resolution of the conflict. It was just a jumble of hackneyed Hollywood-esque antics and theatrics. It was just too hilarious for even the audience to continue watching. Shouts of "Nollywood is bigger than this nàw," filled the air. Some members of the audience even began to leave the cinema hall, before the movie ended.
The screenwriters of this movie obviously didn't give the screenplay a direction, as the movie took a life of its own, and was torn between being a romantic thriller and being a romantic tragicomedy. The script supervisor and script analyst that handled the script of this movie didn’t do their job at all.
Rita Dominic's performance as the femme fatale of the movie, Nikki, was just average. Anyone who has seen Rosamund Pike's performance as Amy Dunne in David Fincher's 2014 psychological thriller "Gone Girl" would clearly understand what I mean. There is a charisma that femme fatales exude. And Rita Dominic doesn't have it, yet. Iretiola Doyle and Nse Ikpe-Etim are more gifted and blessed with this charisma.
Iretiola Doyle's performance in Moses Inwang's 2013 thriller "Torn" was a mile better than Rita's.
Nse Ikpe-Etim's performance in Moses Inwang's 2016 psychological thriller "Stalker" beats Rita's performance in "The Guest".
I feel this average performance stems from the fact that it is the first time Rita Dominic would be challenging herself to play the role of a femme fatale; hence her inexperience in the thriller genre becoming evident. One flaw that stood out in her performance, was the sinister facial expressions which weren't convincing but clearly contrived and almost cartoonish.
Femi Jacobs' interpretation of his role as Bill, was clearly comical. His demeanour throughout the film was that of a comedian. Almost Rowan Atkinson-esque! It was as if he couldn't take himself seriously. He was the major contributing factor to the movie's deviation from being a Thriller to becoming a Tragicomedy.
For a comedy film, Femi's performance would have been welcomed to critical acclaim. But for a thriller, it was an off tangent performance from him. A great performance in the wrong movie genre!
Andrea Chika Chukwu was as loquacious as ever in her role as Peggy. It was her performance that was the second major contributing factor to the movie's deviation from a Thriller to a Tragicomedy. She was literally saying the right things but in wrong beats. It was as if she was scared of saying some of her lines. Her facial expressions were just too hilarious! So I will give the same remarks I gave to Femi, to her. A great performance in the wrong movie genre!
The Ugly
The only thing ugly about this movie is how it deviated from the Thriller that it set out to be, and morphed into a Tragicomedy. The members of the crew directly involved with the script, as well as the defaulting actors I mentioned earlier, should all take the fall for this.
Commentary
It is true that filmmaking is not easy, especially in climes like Nigeria. In an industry like Nollywood. However, the Nigerian cinephile populace aren't the forgiving type. They expect value for their money, and won't hesitate to snarl at filmmakers when their needs are not met. So I am pleading with every Nollywood filmmaker, to always do their best to satisfy the growing number of cinema goers in Nigeria. They are beginning to have faith in Nollywood movies slated for the Big Screen. Please let's not disappoint them!
Verdict
The Guest is a movie with misconstrued ambitions. Its concept had a premise with so much promise, but failed to deliver.
If you want to see a thriller that would keep you reeling with a lot of laughter and still deliver a little bit of suspense, then you should go see The Guest. I rate this movie, 2 stars out of 5.
Cinematographer: Richard Mabiaku
Production Designer: Foluke Olaniyi
Sound Engineers: Tolulope Oluwabiyi, Solanke Olusola
Producers: Foluke Olaniyi, Rita Dominic
Assistant Director: Adebode Olawale
Director: Christian Olayinka
CAST
Rita Dominic
Femi Jacobs
Somkele Idhalama
Andrea Chika Chukwu
Chamberlain Okoro
Neville Ossai
Florence Paul
Lekan Kolawole
Production Studios: The Audrey Silva Company, Banner Films, FilmArt Farm Workshop, Christian Olayinka Company
Distribution Company: Silverbird Distribution
Release Date: February 3, 2017
Runtime: 120 minutes
Genre: Romantic Thriller
Rating: R16 (Sexual Content, Violence, Strong Language)
Language: English
Country: Nigeria
SYNOPSIS
"The Guest" tells the tale of the ill-fated love triangle between Bill (Femi Jacobs), Lola (Somkele Idhalama) and Nikki (Rita Dominic).
Bill, Lola, and Nikki were friends from their undergraduate days. Back then, Nikki refused Bill's love advances towards her. She soon traveled to the UK. And Lola ended up getting married to Bill.
Years later, Bill and Lola's marriage becomes devoid of passion; an aftermath of Lola's total focus on her business career ambitions.
Nikki is soon deported back to Nigeria from the UK. And Lola invites her to come and stay in her home for as long as she wants.
A bitter and jealous Nikki seizes the opportunity to try re-igniting Bill's love her. As soon as Lola travels for a business trip, Nikki begins to execute her malicious plan...by seducing him. And from this point, everything spirals out of control!
CRITIQUE
The Good
The Cast looked the part. The actors all looked the respective parts they were to play. But did they play the part?
The concept on which the movie's plot was built, was a premise with so much promise.
The cinematography was good. The visual quality was crisp and clear. The lighting was also commendable.
With regards to the performance of the actors, Chamberlain Okoro, who is a newbie to the Big Screen, did his best to play his role as Jimmy, the thoughtful best friend of Bill. He had a decent performance. However, the way he ducked for cover behind the Police Officer when Nikki whipped out a pistol and aimed it at him, was totally epic and hilarious! You only get to such antics in comedies. To be frank, The Guest should be termed a Tragicomedy. It's nothing like a thriller.
Somkele Idhalama is gradually worming her way into the hearts of cinephiles in Nigeria, with her great performances. Whilst her performance in The Guest was no where near her performance in Steve Gukas's 2016 Drama/Thriller, 93 Days. She still gave a decent account of herself.
The way she played her role as the naïve, enterprising, trusting, and almost silly Lola, was quite believable. At least a lot of the audience in the cinema hall empathized with her character. She really got to them!
The Bad
The sound was not of Dolby Digital full surround stereo hi-fi quality. At some point in the movie, the sound became very low, for a handful of minutes. I could barely hear the dialogues.
The plot started out well but lost it at the end of the second act. The third act twist that was supposed to lead to the conflict resolution was poorly scripted.
The banter in the final scenes between Bill and Nikki, went on for far too long. It was just too stretched! Lola marching into the living room where Bill was held hostage by Nikki, unarmed, and without a police officer shielding her, was just too incredulous. There were Police Officers outside laying siege for Nikki. Why didn’t one of them just accompany Lola into the living room? In real life situations, Lola would have been gunned down by Nikki, for such foolhardiness. So I wonder why it was portrayed otherwise.
There were just too many incredulous actions taken by Nikki towards the resolution of the conflict. It was just a jumble of hackneyed Hollywood-esque antics and theatrics. It was just too hilarious for even the audience to continue watching. Shouts of "Nollywood is bigger than this nàw," filled the air. Some members of the audience even began to leave the cinema hall, before the movie ended.
The screenwriters of this movie obviously didn't give the screenplay a direction, as the movie took a life of its own, and was torn between being a romantic thriller and being a romantic tragicomedy. The script supervisor and script analyst that handled the script of this movie didn’t do their job at all.
Rita Dominic's performance as the femme fatale of the movie, Nikki, was just average. Anyone who has seen Rosamund Pike's performance as Amy Dunne in David Fincher's 2014 psychological thriller "Gone Girl" would clearly understand what I mean. There is a charisma that femme fatales exude. And Rita Dominic doesn't have it, yet. Iretiola Doyle and Nse Ikpe-Etim are more gifted and blessed with this charisma.
Iretiola Doyle's performance in Moses Inwang's 2013 thriller "Torn" was a mile better than Rita's.
Nse Ikpe-Etim's performance in Moses Inwang's 2016 psychological thriller "Stalker" beats Rita's performance in "The Guest".
I feel this average performance stems from the fact that it is the first time Rita Dominic would be challenging herself to play the role of a femme fatale; hence her inexperience in the thriller genre becoming evident. One flaw that stood out in her performance, was the sinister facial expressions which weren't convincing but clearly contrived and almost cartoonish.
Femi Jacobs' interpretation of his role as Bill, was clearly comical. His demeanour throughout the film was that of a comedian. Almost Rowan Atkinson-esque! It was as if he couldn't take himself seriously. He was the major contributing factor to the movie's deviation from being a Thriller to becoming a Tragicomedy.
For a comedy film, Femi's performance would have been welcomed to critical acclaim. But for a thriller, it was an off tangent performance from him. A great performance in the wrong movie genre!
Andrea Chika Chukwu was as loquacious as ever in her role as Peggy. It was her performance that was the second major contributing factor to the movie's deviation from a Thriller to a Tragicomedy. She was literally saying the right things but in wrong beats. It was as if she was scared of saying some of her lines. Her facial expressions were just too hilarious! So I will give the same remarks I gave to Femi, to her. A great performance in the wrong movie genre!
The Ugly
The only thing ugly about this movie is how it deviated from the Thriller that it set out to be, and morphed into a Tragicomedy. The members of the crew directly involved with the script, as well as the defaulting actors I mentioned earlier, should all take the fall for this.
Commentary
It is true that filmmaking is not easy, especially in climes like Nigeria. In an industry like Nollywood. However, the Nigerian cinephile populace aren't the forgiving type. They expect value for their money, and won't hesitate to snarl at filmmakers when their needs are not met. So I am pleading with every Nollywood filmmaker, to always do their best to satisfy the growing number of cinema goers in Nigeria. They are beginning to have faith in Nollywood movies slated for the Big Screen. Please let's not disappoint them!
Verdict
The Guest is a movie with misconstrued ambitions. Its concept had a premise with so much promise, but failed to deliver.
If you want to see a thriller that would keep you reeling with a lot of laughter and still deliver a little bit of suspense, then you should go see The Guest. I rate this movie, 2 stars out of 5.
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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in comments on this blog, are solely those of the commentators and does not in any way reflect or represent the views of Ebukah E. Nzeji.