The Place

Their mission is to go to heaven and steal the book of life, which they refer to for some reason as ‘the chronicle of the book’, in order to write their names in it, and for this purpose they employ two touts from Warri. On the other hand, in Heaven two aspiring comedians are chosen to go back to earth and retrieve the book from the thieves. With a foundation as outrageous as that you can only imagine what the movie becomes. Then again it’s a comedy flick? So should we excuse the lapses in rationality based on this?

I think not! I think every movie, fantasy, or not should have some way of making the rationale clear to the audience. We, as the audience, understand what they’re trying to do, why they want to, and how they intend to, but there is some part of that ‘how’ that doesn’t completely make sense.

For instance, how was the book transported from the realm of the place to earth and back. The next sentence might seem a bit ridiculous but please follow my train of thought because I’d think it more probable that a fellow would die, his soul would go to heaven, he would interact with the angels and return into his body. All’s well and fine, it’s a concept most can wrap their heads around, however when you compare that with a person dying, going to the realm of the spiritual and coming back with a book? How does that work out? When your soul comes back on your body does the book magically materialize? And when they try to go back?… To state it simply somethings needed to be further clarified.

As  regards the performances in this movie, most of the comedians were outstanding. Helen Paul is something else. Ime Bishop is fantastic. Patrick Onyeka had great moments and Gordons was simply the icing on the cake. As a comic film, and this coming from an individual who absolutely abhors Nollywood comedies, the movie had its moments. I guarantee that you will laugh at least once in every other scene regardless of how much of a sadist you are.

The problem is not with the comedy, the problem, like most other Nollywood comedies, is the story, it’s just ridiculous. It’s not ridiculous in the “Hangover” sense of it-could-happen-but-what-are-the-odds, it’s more like some-things-don’t-tie-up-but-let’s-pretend-we-didn’t-see-that.

The movie ‘the place’ is not slapstick comedy but I recommend you leave your brain at home for this one lest you don’t enjoy because you’re over-analyzing it. It’s simple and straight to the point, if it was any longer than it ended up then it would have become tedious. The graphics for the most part looked like the first release of C.O.D – Call of Duty video game – back in 2003; there was definitely room for improvement but it’s also probably one of the good ones in comparison to other Nollywood graphics.

All in all the story is a bit ridiculous but it does have its moments