Death Certificate
Stephanie Okereke, Yul Edochie, Sylvester Madu, Chacha Ekeh, Solomon Akiyesi, Miltex Ene Ogiri, Susan Ekwe
A story of a young man JJ (Sylvester Madu) and his sister Monica (Stephanie Okereke Linus) who lost their parents early in life. Things became very hard for them, and in the quest to make a living they lost contact with each other. Monica goes into prostitution with her friends and perfected the art of duping the men that come her way. The story is turned on its head when she bumps into her brother after so many years and they decided to form an armed robbery gang. It was on one of their operations that her brother was killed and after a long chase by a police team headed by Yul Edochie,the girls were able to escape. This brings us to the question will the police continue to hunt these girls down or will they give up the chase?
Death Certificate part 1 and part 2. The movie is also known as BANK BUSINESS, hence Bank Business part 1 and part 2
Ifeanyi Ikpoenyi
Onyeka Joe Orajiaka
Sylvester Madu
2012
The cast and the sets
Some costume mistakes
Stephanie Okereke (Linus) returns to our screens in this Nollywood action drama. The movie also stars two of the actors that we’ve come to associate with action in Nollywood’s 2010s, and as the 2000s had Saint Obi and JT Tom West, the 2010s have ChaCha Eke and Sylvester Madu.
From ‘go’, Stephanie reminds us exactly why she’s a seasoned actress. The ease… the ease… the absolute ease with which she goes through the scenes, so effortless. And the effortlessness reflects on the screen from scene to scene. Watching her act, watching her portray a character doesn’t seem like watching a movie, it’s more like watching a reality show because you never get the feeling that she’s acting… that’s how good the lady is. She does it so naturally that you forget this is a movie.
The movie was a splendid action movie, you don’t get very many watchable Nollywood action flicks these days (The last one I saw was Bank Job which pales in comparison). Ifeanyi Ikpoenyi’s (or whoever the casting director) stroke of genius was in adding Sylvester Madu to the cast line up, seeing as he is one of the only Nollywood actors who can actually hold a gun.
Speaking of Mr. Hollywood (Ifeanyi Ikpoenyi), the last of his works that I saw was “The Kingdom” starring Van Vicker and Eucharia Anunobi, and that movie was nothing if not grand: grand sets, grand costumes, grand dialogues, even grand spoken English. And some of that grandness extended to ‘Death Certificate’ mainly in the cast and the sets.
As regards its grandness in cast, how else do you explain getting Stephanie Linus in her first movie since only God knows when (we’re going to completely ignore ‘Doctor Bello‘ abeg). And the grandness in sets? See the movie and you can’t deny it.
Death Certificate is one of those movies where the audience is rooting for the bad guys even though Yul Edochie and Solomon Akiyesi are the good guys, which I consider in itself an achievement. How do you get an audience (which is probably predominantly female) to root for the bad guys when Yul Edochie is leading the team of good guys? (and when he looks so good in a police uniform?)
This review would be more than incomplete if Chacha Eke is not mentioned. Earlier on in Chacha’s career I was her biggest fan, she was impressive from movie to movie, from shot to shot and from line to line. Then somewhere along the line something happened (doesn’t it always?) and the Chacha I was seeing in the movies was not the Chacha we knew. There was too much fake, too much unnecessary accents and just too much gragra coming from her on screen. But the beauty of this movie is that it somehow managed to bring back the old Chacha. Chacha was impressive and flawless in this movie. Her rendition of her character was convincing and believable.
Now ofcourse the movie is not without her flaws but they mainly had to do with cos
tumes and makeup. For instance, why is Sylvester Madu wearing shades indoors in every other scene? And what exactly is that thing that he is wearing sef? And how exactly does one get shot on the back whilst wearing a red shirt, stumble and fall, yet the shirt is still as white as Ariel advert?
Trailer:
hmmm… you’re obviously a Stephenie fan..not seen an action movie in nollywood lately. i just hope this makes sense o. I’ll try to find it. LOL @ ‘as white ariel advert’.. trust naija smh
Lol, I wouldn’t say I’m a Stephanie fan per say… I’ve never thought of myself as one. I’ll borrow a line from Jefferson and say ‘we hold these truths to be self evident’ lol