Onex Productions presents Kio (Gentle Jack), Ebi (Emanuel Ehumadu), Chief Dumo (Enebeli Enebuwa), Chief Eju (Columbus Oriosuanga), and Governor Larry Briggs. Story, Gentle Jack, Screenplay, Charles Inoji; Director, Charles Inoji; Producer, Gentle Jack; Director of Photography, Onyi Olannyi Okechukwu; Producer, Gentle Jack; Executive Producer, Hon Charles Archor Nsiegbu. ©2013.
“Water, water everywhere, nor a drop to drink.” ––Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
The above one-liner in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is the most crucial passage that foreshadows the theme of “The Niger Delta Nemesis.” In this sense, oil, naturally endowed to the region, of the Niger Delta, parallels the curse of the albatross in the poem. Just as in the poem, water is used as a symbol of life and death; similarly, oil in the Niger Delta symbolizes life, happiness, and abundant wealth, but also brings untold misery to the inhabitants: “My son, let’s leave Toroma and the plague called oil for now. For us…oil is a curse.”
Producers are often skilled at casting the right lead for their projects, which is beneficial. Recruiting Gentle Jack was no mistake. I will tell you why. The first time I reviewed Gentle Jack was when Eastsyde Entertainment featured him in the lead part, as a character named Terror in Chase (2008). That’s my why. The reason I reviewed The Niger Delta Nemesis. His pursuit in the mangrove forests, with his significantly bulging and monstrous eyes, terrified the audience as he chased after young men caught, ignorantly, of course, in Lagos’ political cross hairs. I admired how Gentle Jack, tall and gallant, in a trench coat, led his ragtag posse in pursuit of the young pleasure-seekers holding out in an older woman’s and her only daughter’s house, as he caressed his machine gun, like romancing death itself, reminiscent of Napoleon at Waterloo, as he looked at the house in a distance.
To my disappointment, Gentle Jack falls below my expectations. He is not the same M16 gun-toting rebel I once saw in Chase. If I only considered and measured him against his role in Chase, where he proved to be a Rambo. We may forgive him, though, he acted naïve in The Niger Delta Nemesis. The script didn’t give him the bandwidth to play his Rambo-like character. Imagine Kio (Gentle Jack), who hails from this region, where his mother and father went into debt to get their son educated so he could return and make up for what they couldn’t do. And the leaders are squandering what is rightfully owned by the community’s children. For instance, his mother couldn’t haul drinking water from the elder who had squandered the funds that the CDC had given to the community for their livelihood, specifically for clean drinking water. Unlike his girlfriend, the CDC Chairman’s daughter, Kio forms a rebel group, demanding that the youths receive their share of oil company payments to the community. Yet not a farthing went to the youths.
Kio (Gentle Jack) fights the community elders head-on. Oh, no, the elders won’t have it. Such a little kid as one of their sons won’t fight them over this. They blackmail him. Of course, he didn’t fight them lying down; he stood up to them for real. His ragtag posse, all native-born, were ready to fight for their rights except one. He crossed-carpeted to the elders’ side and became a snitch when they made him promises he knew were fake, along with whatever else, before he could betray the community’s youths. The ragtag group could only make do with a Ghana-must-go bag full of wads of Naira, after they waylaid the oil company’s official and took him hostage. The posse turns on Kio when the snitch reveals his betrayal in the presence of the entire posse, claiming that Kio is the betrayer, not he, who has sold the community to the CDC. Kio and his parents are banished from the community, and he has no choice but to prove himself. With the little ado, I will stop here and let you judge the story critically and mentally.
Gentle Jack of old isn’t the same in The Niger Delta Nemesis. For instance, in Chase, he employs his Rambo-like prowess to achieve his goal. It is disappointing to see him held by the hand, by a native charm, as he fights the enemies of progress in his communities. To be straight up with the screenwriter and producers, the issue here in literary terms, dramatically, I mean, is lame. I disliked Chinese and Indian films when they featured unbelievable stunts, such as a character jumping from a fifty-foot building to save their loved one, or a genie coming to save a girl from a loved one. I’d rather have seen my beloved Kio, the stature and aura of a giant, with an M16, breaking all the bans, fighting like a lone ranger to get to the achievable goal. But to be helped by a charm wafting the magic fronds of the palm tree is unbelievable. Any talent of a poor stature would have played Gentle Jack’s character then.
After all, the charm got him in tow, all the ragtag posse he had recruited from the forest to the village with no fuss. I respectfully address the screenwriter: “Where is the dramatic fuss, where indeed is the conflict?” The community comes to terms with Kio when he brings the entire posse to the elders, who are under a spell and pledge their allegiance to him. The community, in turn, makes him the leader of the youth services. You recall when he declined to accept the little sum his mother borrowed from the women’s association. Well, he achieved his goal of becoming a youth leader.
The title, Nemesis, doesn’t quite sit well with me when we consider the threat of Gentle Jack and his ragtag posse. The title here, by every definition, didn’t pass. Speaking of “Nemesis,” we can examine and compare the conflict between Olu Jacobs and RDM (Gunpowder) over the exploitation of foreign investors in the region, in Oliobiri (2015), where man-eating elders take advantage of the local people in favor of the oil industry. Single-handedly, Richard Mofi puts his life on the line for people in the Niger Delta, even as he loses it. And consider the capital intensity of the project. That was a pivotal battle, significantly affecting the events during the recovery of River State, and he ultimately lost his life as a result. Nemesis has nothing on the significance of Oloibiri, in both drama and objective.
Gentle Jack isn’t given the bandwidth in the script to justify his presence as the youth leader. The word Nemesis and even the impending sound of it, causes old ages like you and me to pee in our pants. Here, the elders were drinking gin, swallowing fufu, and laughing on top of it. Nemesis is like a toothless bulldog that barks but doesn’t bite. Gentle Jack’s role is straightforward and lacks notable or thrilling elements. I followed him when he got off the motorbike and rejoined his parents; his father danced the happy dance, just like any parent would. I took a quick trip to the bath and came back in a jiffy, tucked comfortably into my couch because, based on the last film — Chase — I sensed something good in the making, counting on his allure. But oh ya, was I disappointed?