Archivas Entertainment presents Sambasa Nyeribe (Hamza), Segun Arinze (Major Gata), Tokumba Idowu (Sandra), Femi Adebayo (Kola), Bahlofin Sukanmi (Bishop), Smart Conrad (Douglas), Doe Junior (Morgan), Amaka Ojeih (Nicole), Anita Osikhena Oskikweme. Screenplay by Smart Conrad; Producer, Daniel Cole Chiori; Executive Producer, Achieves Entertainment; Director/Director of Photography; Toka McBaror. © 2018
Colonel Troutman (Richard Crenna) removes John Rambo from prison and offers him a deal to travel to Vietnam to free American prisoners of war. In return, they’ll expunge his criminal records. He agrees and goes on the mission into Vietnam in Rambo First Blood Part 2. Nollywood tries its best to create a Rambo-like character without the muscles, the ruggedness, the slurred utterances, and the ‘give-a-fuck’ type of behavior of Rambo and without the mighty big gun of Rambo.
The Island didn’t start as a reconnaissance mission Rambo was sent on. However, Hamza (Samboza Nyiribe) inadvertently assigned himself to a task in the name of his country’s love by doing the right thing. Hamza is a radio operator on the makeshift government base, fighting the rebels, headed by a rugged guerrilla fighter named Bishop (Bahlofin Sukanmi). Hamza eavesdrops on a conversation the unit captain has with Bishop involving an armed deal to the rebels in exchange for money and records the transaction on a flashcard.
Before leaving the camp to the city, he had told his wife why reporting to the head office, and his wife acting as an undercover, relay the news to Major Gata (Segun Arinze). Hamza’s military jeep is waylaid by three camouflaged military gunmen shooting at him as he approaches them. He swerved the jeep, and it somersaulted down onto a ravine and lays by its side from which his all-bloodied body ejected. He barely escapes the attackers, then wonders unto Death Island, where a handful of citizens are marooned.
Meanwhile, the three camouflaged soldiers report to Major Gata about Hamza’s escape but still turns them back into the forest. They run into the rebel Bishop’s trap and seizes their guns. Upon learning from them the reason for chasing after Hamza and knowing it was for a flashcard, Bishop raises Major Gata’s stake. Bishop is hot, traversing the Island in search of Hamza. By now, Hamza enters the warehouse where the citizens have escaped the war, and the government has abandoned them.
Upon seeing his bloodied head, the marooners jump him even as he shoots his pistol above their heads to ward them off. Hamza passes off after and, when he comes to, tells them he is a runaway from the military, which plans to kill him. The marooners are now more afraid of finding out that he was wanted. Even when he volunteers to take them from the Island, they refuse and instead wanted him gone. He goes taking along Sandra (Tokumba Idowu) and her younger sister, who insists he takes them with him. Hardly had they left death Island than Bishop and his rebels entered the camp.
Bishop terrorizes the marooners on Death Island, pointing a gun in their faces to tell him the runaway soldier’s whereabouts. “Handover the soldier boy, and you’ll all live,” says Bishop. After shooting one of them, a volunteer tells him the runaway soldier came through, but they didn’t accept him in their midst, and he left. By now, Hamza and the two women have crossed into the mainland. Machine gunshots sound ringed from the Island, indicating the marooners have all been slaughtered by Bishop and his rebels.
Hamza had happened on an old transistor radio at the marooners’ camp, which he reengineers and makes into a handheld communicating device. With that, he’s able to touch base with his trusted friend, Douglas (Smart Conrad), now radio operator, and asks about his wife. Douglas and his wife are taken by Major Gata and his handful of crew. It is then incumbent upon Hamza to find them and free them from the hands of Gata, yet he couldn’t get to see Douglas because they shot him in his chest. He’s arrested and bound in a chair, almost sentenced to death, and his wife is brought to him.
Bishop enters the room, kills Hamza’s wife, and there’s an altercation between him and Major Garta. He shoots Gata dead, but before he could turn his attention to Hamza, Hamza jumps him and shoots Bishop and all his men. When it becomes light in the room, only Hamza survives. The next time we see him, he’s on a beach reading a newspaper that reads: The Conspiracy Has Been Uncovered.
Hamza (Sambosa Nyirebe) finds out many things are going on wrong in the Nigerian Federal Military that hampers the fight against rebel insurgence in the country. Hamza didn’t know about it, but he stumbles on it while eavesdropping on his commander, Major Gata. His commander is compromised. He is engaged in weapon-smuggling to the rebels in Nigeria:
“For three years, this country has suffered in the hands of terrorists. People have died. Everyone expects the army to end the cruelty of terrorism in this country but to no avail. Do you know why? Because we are the disease we are trying to cure. We are the very people empowering them—the army.” Hamza gets to know about it, and he copied the conversation on a flashcard, and he wants to present the card to the headquarters.
The monologue Hamza made to his wife establishes our expectation for an obligatory scene in the end. When all the threads (plots) of the story can be seamlessly joined together into one whole and relieve us. Hamza discovers what Major Gata is up to and propels him to drive and report to the headquarters. We did not see his gunshot-riddled bloody body crawling on the military headquarters’ doorstep and holding out the flashcard to his captain before he passes out.
I guess submitting the flashcard through an exposition of any nature to the authority before relaxing at the beach was a requirement that would have satisfied the audience. It means the goods were delivered. Here, it is implied and not implicit. Besides, The Island does pretend by all its strength to present a Nollywood Rambo. Next time, bring in more obstacles on his way, like managing through his valor and jungle tactics, free all the marooners from Death Island. He should take more hair-raising risks. We may use either Jim Iyke, Sylvester Madu, and the likes. They have the caliber of a lone ranger. My experience with The Island is turbid. Watch it and share your experience.