A Soul Mate Production presents, Nse Ikpe Etim (Kora Daniels), Femi Jacobs (Myles), Jibila Dabo (Simon), Seun Akindele (Walter), Idongesit Bruno (Grace). Screenplay, Patrick Koinage Nnamani; Director Of Photography, Tunde Adekoya; Producer, Solomon Chidiebere; Director, Michael Jaja. (C 2015).
The introduction of principal players in this movie is what I missed in the presentation of players in Contract Killers. Dear Writer or Producer, give me a heads up on the propensities and capabilities of actors in films of this nature. To wit: Walter Umukoro, 35, a soldier, France Turkey and South Africa; Grace Balogun, ITS expert, Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, and ethical hacking expert, trainee DSI Agent; Kora Daniels, master of disguise, multilingual, assignments include Freetown, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, and Liberia. Such introductions get me started.
By such introduction, the movie has already beckoned to me the manner of people I’m going to have for company in the next hour or two. The next thing I’ll do, is hopscotch to the refrigerator or the man cave for a shot of whiskey on soda or my favorite gin, aristocrat, to be exact, no beer allowed, because I know what time is it. Nse Ikpe Etim (Kora Daniels ) is about to debut in a security agent movie. I’ve seen her in Reloaded (2016), feisty and crazy there, a kinda African version of the American 9-5 movie; Guilty Pleasures (2011) in which she cheats on her husband with his younger brother; Bursting Out (2010): She has this much chip on her shoulder, stopping Genevieve Nnanji, from hanging out with her low-life Valentine choice, Majid. I know Nse Ikpe Etim can pull this easy. I settle on my old couch, focused on the screen. Bam! There’s my girl, Nsi Ikpe Etim, waking up in bed with a lover, and that makes me instinctively jealous, not so much for love but simple care for a lovely girl. I never forget that gap in her teeth and how she uses it to flirt with men, and how she forces droplets of tears from the corner of her right eye when she weeps. Always. She’s a hired hand to protect a politician in a primary season, in the African Kaibara City, Lagos.
Oh, uh, the murdered brother-in-law’s sister and wife of the Senator accuses Kora Daniels of negligence and gets her fired from DSI.
As of the twentieth of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand and eighteen, I became the one hundred eighty-three thousand and eight hundred and thirty-sixth viewer of this movie. And lots of those viewers have a lot to say about the film, the actors, the production and all. One viewer lauded the video: This movie is so lovely, it best Nollywood movie. Another, Amazing work guys. Another, a wonderful movie. And another, very poor sound quality. Another, Nice movie but the volume is so low. The commentary that stood out in relief is the one that says, The lead female wasn’t right 4 this movie. She was supposed to be good, but seemed so timid, as a spy. Bad acting by her and I have seen other higher budget movies where she acted really well like in ‘fifty.’
I have not seen Fifty (2015), but the list of commentaries goes on and on. What review would I give Most Wanted Woman without causing some wahala for me in Nollywood country? As a reviewer, I share the point of view of most viewers. My observation, however, needs go deeper, constructive, suggestive, corrective, but at the same time, not to bring down the piece of art made by Nollywood, albeit I sit confused as what name be the most fitting category for it. My left side brain wants me to call it ‘whodunit,’ the right side says, no, it could be called a spy movie. The intuitive mind, of course, wants me to call it, ‘who framed Kora Daniels and she becomes a fugitive?’ A fugitive? Yes, becomes a fugitive.
That reminds me of The Fugitive (1993) when Dr. Richard Kimble (Harison Ford), is falsely accused and sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. He wants to find the killer single-handedly, but he becomes the subject of a nationwide manhunt by the ferocious U.S Marshall, Tommy Lee Jones after he escapes during a train wreck.
Here, Kora Daniels according to her caliber, is a simple ex-soldier and a veteran who wants to make a living or two but someone murdered the Senator’s brother-in-law on her watch, and a little down the line, someone kills the senator’s wife too. All fingers point to Kora Daniels, especially as a creative loafer moonlighting with a crime fiction that almost seem so vivid that everybody thinks she has something to do with it. Who’s behind this and why? Is there a conspiracy afoot here? Our suspicion goes to Simon and Myles, Kora’s immediate boss in the office and lover at home.
The Fugitive is a single thread plot. Everybody thinks Dr. Richard Kimble murdered his wife except him, and he’s on the run chasing the killer as well, unbeknownst to the general public or the law. Check every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, doghouse! Commands the U.S Marshall in charge of the manhunt. Post her photos at checkpoints, at the park, at the border, at the airport; I’ve just declared Kora Daniels, the most wanted woman! DSI Captain announces to his handful squad.
Here, Kora Daniels didn’t kill the brother-in-law of the Senator and didn’t kill the Senator’s wife in bed. Almost, both incidents occurred when she was involved with her immediate boss, Myles. But the story wants us to look for the killer, and the one person framing the poor Kora Daniels and why. I’m not going to spend my time looking for the ‘why?’ But I’m sure the killer and the framer are within the DSI. What the movie denies us the viewers, and therefore makes the story looks like a whodunit, is that they didn’t accurately use dramatic irony. They should have let the audience in on the joke while Kora Daniels stays ignorant about the framer or framers. I guess Myles and Beast are the assassins, killing and could also be on the payroll of the estate mogul, Simon, on the island. The audience isn’t let to know until in the outcome when by chance Kora stumbles on a chip which reveals the crux of the story.
Again I must say here; my intent is not to dismiss this literary effort as a pack of tarradiddle, or mosaic of moving shots. If we, however, tried to follow the rhetoric of MWW, we come to a fork in the road. Whodunit, and fugitive, and conspiracy. The film centers around a single character, Kora Daniels, and all plot structures must be directed on her and to her because this is a human dignity theme: Kora Daniels wants to clear her name just as Kimble intends to make his name in his wife’s murder.
At the beginning of the movie, the bank manager’s vehicle is followed by a helmeted motorcyclist to his office, where someone slashes his throat, apparently by the cyclist. The idea of the manager beckoning to the driver to drive on seems that he knows, a figure on a bike is following. That’s a cheesy dramatic ploy. The movie didn’t let us see the murderer’s face, but it gives us a close-up of his shoes. If Most Wanted Woman, a film about ‘whodunit,’ it would have somehow given us the face, and the shoe in other scenes down the line. Showing a close-up of the shoe is giving viewers head-up of the wardrobe of the mysterious man making the mysterious killings. After that scene, there’s no such reference in the entire story. So this won’t be a ‘whodunit.’
Assuming this is a fugitive story, there’s no manhunt for Kora Daniels besides measly gun-toting squad of DSI officers standing at attention in front of the Captain. We admire Harrison Ford in The Fugitive, as he escapes dragnets, sleeps under bridges, joins the St Patricks Day Parade, eluding the U.S. Marshall. The limping of Kimble in the movie is a real-life accident he incurs on the set when he pulls a ligament in his leg in the forest chase, but postponed surgery until the wrap-up of the film. About the Most Wanted Woman, there’s no chasing at all. It’s like DSI on one side of town, guns drawn, and Kora Daniels on the other hand in the city, moonlighting on a crime fiction; running her gym or nursing plants for her old lady buddy. MWW is not like the cat and mouse experience in The Fugitive.
Kora falls on hard times and gets mysteriously recruited by Simon who holds captives all and everyone veteran that has been bruised by war outside Nigeria and promises them a new lease on life. By his vodoo, he fashions his prisoners into killing machines and assassins who do his biddings in Lagos. Myles and another wanton character called Beast have been the killers for him. He didn’t get Kora to do his biddings, but instead, she turns against the trio: Beast, Simon, and Myles killing them all, thereby vindicating herself from the accusations.
I like the tempo and the hurried shots which portrays a chase in the film, but as according to a viewer’s comment which I half support, The lead female wasn’t right 4 this movie. She was supposed to be good but seemed so timid as a spy. Bad acting by her… I say that’s not exactly true. It’s the screenplay, stupid!