Ghetto Queen

I saw this film, went meh, clicked on it then skipped to the middle. That’s when things changed. The story was interesting enough that I went back to the beginning and legit started watching it. And I was right, the story is certainly good but it was let down quite heavily by the lead actress.

When we talk about originality it could mean two things, the plot is new never-been-seen- before or it’s new in Nollywood. This is new in Nollywood but very old in other industries and mediums. I enjoyed this plot especially in the beginning but I felt it peters out in the end. Part of this wasn’t the fault of the story though rather in the way it was presented. This woman is supposed to be a very big star yet the concerts feel very underwhelming with about 30-50 people attending. Only one song of hers is used, played over and over again as both a song in the movie as well as part of the soundtrack and it wasn’t a particularly good song. At the end of the movie I hated this song, if you intend to use a song so much at least make it entertaining and varied .It just wasn’t big enough. The motto is ‘Show, don’t tell’ .The end should have been satisfying but it wasn’t, the film had lost so much energy at that point.

John Dumelo was a standout here in both acting and in his character; in fact he made the film. However he was the only one that had an interesting and developed character.They tried with James Gardiner’s character but he was still just so bland. His acting was hard to put a finger on because this is the first time I have even seen him.To me he was just going through the motions. But the biggest let down, the one thing that prevented this film from actually being good was Zainab Sheriff. She literally didn’t have a character at all and she really needed one because the film was dependent on seeing her story, how she reacted to her life .Her acting really didn’t help ,very flat and uninspiring. She has no energy; her facial expression didn’t change once . The actors talked too fast at the beginning, at times the actors were breathless from talking so fast especially John Dumelo.

What really stood out to me was how this film captured Sierra Leone, it was practically an ad. It was truly beautiful, from the ‘ghetto’ to the rich areas. It really took a snapshot of Sierra Leone and did so beautifully. The setting was gorgeous as well especially that house, watch for that house. The soundtrack was not good, they used auto tune for what felt like the only song in the movie which made even less sense if we are meant to believe that song propelled her to stardom.

In conclusion, watch for the story and the scenery because there is nothing else there. This movie convinced me to try SL sometime in the future.