One Fine Day Films present, in cooperation with Ginger Ink Films, in Association with D.W Akademie, present Joseph Wairimu (Mwas), Olwenya Maine (Oti), Shix Kapyenga (Amina), Muganbi Nthiga (Cederic), Paul Agola (Mose) Abubakar Mwuenda (Dingo). Director, David’ Tush’ Gitonga; Writers, Billy Kahora, Potash Charles Mathathia, Samuel Munene, Sarah Mwihaki; Producers, Sarika Hemi Lakhani, Tom Tykwer, Ginger Wilson; Directors of Photography, Christian Almesberger, Lawrence Kinani, Meshack Oduor, Violet Otindo. © 2012.
One will first wonder what the meaning of half-life is. What would come to mind as an average reader or viewer of African movies with such titles? It would mean nothing or just another of those names producers or scriptwriters append to their projects. But Nairobi Half-Life means something, a life half glass full, then it extirpates. It is a thematic title, as well as scientific. The story embodies the life of an energetic country boy migrating to the city of Nairobi in pursuit of an acting career. In other words, the movie could be called the ‘odyssey of a wannabe actor.’
Mwas (Joseph Wairimu) himself, 2013 AMAA Award winner, Best Young/Promising Actor for Nairobi Half-Life, leaves his drunkard father and impoverished home to trek to Nairobi to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. In his search, he has to endure pain and disgrace. First, a traveling theater group leader stole money from him and promised to be his agent when he got to Nairobi. The man was a fraud. Upon his arrival in Nairobi, he was taken in by the police and locked up, mistaken for a vagrant. At the same time, Mwas, with his devoted sense to become an actor, still finds time to seek his dream. He combs the streets of Nairobi in search of drama clubs and auditions.
Here he meets the street kingpin, Oti (Olwenya Maine), who will show him the life of migrant youths in Nairobi.
Life begins to get suitable for Mwas. He joins Oti and his gang and quickly masters robbing cellphones and auto parts from cars and selling them for money to later use on prostitutes at bars and brothels. He mingles with blokes to look up to and look after him. He keeps looking for drama clubs and notices for auditions for acting parts, unbeknownst to his gang. Except for Oti’s prostitute girlfriend, Amina (Shix Kapyenga), with whom he divulged his acting dreams and whom he has fallen in love with. Oti, at one point, comments to Mwas about Amina, “You and I have the same interest.”
Mwas and Oti up their games to carjackings and make lots of money. By and by, Oti had to contend with two corrupt police officers to whom he paid protection fees. The corrupt police give him a license to criminally do whatever it takes to bring them protection payments. An opposing gang in town grows jealous and confronts Oti and his team, and Dingo (Abubakar Mwenda) gets killed when he falls on a spike as he and Mwas are locked in hand combat. This is beyond the two corrupt officers who’ll have to shut all Oti and his gang, including Mwas. The corrupt officers have to produce the culprit of Dingo’s murderer. Or show no evidence of a culprit by killing all gang members and claiming “shot in shoot-outs between gangs.”
Mwas and Oti turned on the two corrupt police officers and were all killed. But when the backup entered the warehouse, they opened fire on Oti and his gang. Oti is killed, but Mwas escapes and makes it in time to participate in the stage show. He accomplished his goal as an actor. In the crowd sits Amina looking, smiling at him, reassuring herself. Amina doesn’t know Oti has been killed in a shoot-out with the police.
It is Nairobi Half-Life, and it is trying to take us stage by stage on how one achieves his goal before one disintegrates into nothingness. The movie presents the lead man as a character ready to become an actor. Upon introducing our lead in the film, we see Mwas in front of a large crowd, theatrically performing Spartacus. He has no stage fright and delivers flawlessly, and the crowd claps for his performance. His first success as an actor.
As a suffering artist like many, a member of a traveling theater robbed him of the little money he had and promised to represent him as an agent in Nairobi. Upon arrival in Nairobi, he was stripped almost naked and robbed of everything he had. Mwas ended up in jail for vagrancy. In prison, he runs into a kingpin, Oti. Oti has corrupt police officers on his payroll and helps Mwas get a bailout on the street. Mwas is to work for him, though. Work will include stealing and committing any crime for money.
“I need a life.” Mwas.
Dingo and his goons in the hovel laugh at Mwas. They laugh because Mwas is mixing natural life with “living.”
Dingo, “We don’t sell life here. What do you think this is, the labor office?”
Dingo assigns him to his mother’s cookshop, where Mwas washes dishes and helps with other chores. Oti takes him away from there and shows him the entire ghetto land until they end up in the brothel where Amina, his prostitute girlfriend, awaits him whenever he is locked up. Amina, upon seeing Mwas, shows her disdain through her chilly and unwelcoming look, but we can find out later Amina had fallen in love with Mwas at first sight.
Mwas puts his innate dream of acting on hold for a moment and caters to sustenance. He hangs out with Oti and the gang and is knee-deep in crime: cell phone snatchings, ravaging cars for auto parts, stealing headlights, tires, and hubcaps at night, in empty parking lots, and car jerking vehicles from innocent riders. Life presently under the leadership of Oti is good. But that’s not what Mwas wants. Just as today’s celebrities bought their way as dishwashers, servers, couriers, and house cleaners, who made their way to Hollywood Boulevard, so he worked in the slums.
At the back of his mind, though, Mwas still trudge on looking for auditions around Nairobi. He auditions once, and the studio marks him, “Thank you, we will call you.” Back in the ghetto with the gang, stealing auto parts from cars, Mwas shows his business acumen and gets the crew paid a hundred percent on their loot. He strongly haggled the price of Toyota and coveted auto parts with an underground buyer who usually paid half the cost of the value, which didn’t worth the risk. The gang notices that part of his character, for he demonstrates a prowess never seen. Oti could not do the stunt he pulled with the black market dealer. Here Mwas shows the business characteristic necessary for his success in the acting industry.
Dingo (Abubakar Mwenda) and his gang feel slanted by Oti’s gang, and there is a street fight. And in the fist-to-fist combat between Dingo and Mwas, Dingo falls on a spike and dies. The police take in all teams. The corrupt police adjudicate and murder the street gangs with impunity. Mwas and Oti turned on the police, killed them, and shot their way out of the warehouse; Oti couldn’t make it out, though. He gets shot and killed, but Mwas runs to participate in the stage play.
Nairobi Half-Life follows the literal and scientific definition of the almost meaningless term, ‘half-life.’ What is the half-life, one would ask? Google defines half-life, scientifically, as the time taken for the concentration of a given reactant to reach 50% of its initial concentration. That is the reactant’s time to get (sic) half its initial value. Screenwriters David’ Tush’ Gitonga, Billy Kahora, Potash Charles Matathia, Samuel Munene, and Sarah Mwihaki create a radioactive character in Mwas. His life and endeavors are only half-spent. In the stage play, he is shot in the back by the police. Metaphorically, his life is half-spent. Mwas, in his ambition to become an actor, never made it to the big screen. But his stage performance got the audience clapping and all actors bowing down to the crowd. Amina smiled at him. He has only come halfway to the dream he aspires. He did become an actor, though.
Africanmoviestar regrets the death of Olwenya Maina, the gang leader in Nairobi Half Life who suddenly collapsed and died on Monday, July 5th, 2022. His performance in Nairobi Half-Life is remarkable, and we can never forget him as the gangster he was in the film. Our heart goes to his family.