The Banker

The Banker is a movie about a young lady whose father-in-law-to-be is opposed to her relationship with his son because of what she does for a living. The young lady, played by Mbong Amata, is a marketer in a bank, and according to the father-in-law, the job is nothing more than “cooperate prostitution”. So with the consent of her fiance and the rest of his family, they set about to test her resolve and see if she will break.

Now, right off the bat the movie is ringing many many bells in the minds of many women – as it should! The issue of double standards is brought up: why is this done for a woman? If it was a man it wouldn’t be a problem? And all that is very true. However, let us not forget that nollywood made a similar movie many years back called “Games Women Play”. It was a movie starring Genevieve Nnaji, Stella Damasus and Desmond Elliot in which Stella tests her husband by setting him up with her friends to see if he will break.

Now that we have mentioned the elephant in the room, let’s move on to the actual movie. The movie lasts approximately 80 minutes so it gets right into the storyline from the get go. At first you see the title of the movie and read the synopsis and wonder how they intend to drag this father-in-law son fight out and exactly how long it is going to last.

Fortunately, the entire movie is not based on this struggle. The high point of the movie story wise came at the end with the introduction of Seun Akindele’s character. This was the only part of the movie with any real depth to the story, and this probably had something to do with the performance.

Throughout the length of the movie, it can be argued that most of the actors on the screen were giving a decent performance. However, there was an overwhelming air of FAKE that dragged through the movie until Seun shows up. Prior to Seun’s arrival, the movie was just a lot of gas with no spark. So the movie doesn’t only take off when he arrives because of his character, but also because his is the first performance that does not seem forced.

Now don’t get me wrong, the movie is not boring or dragged out until that point. It just doesn’t have any real depth or emotional connections until he shows up. Prior to his arrival, there were things happening on screen and things being explained that the audience doesn’t get to feel or connect to.

The resolution of the movie is all quite bland and actually feels incomplete (*SPOILER* for instance, why was Seun so bent on her not revealing the kiss to her boyfriend?). By the time the end credits come around, you start to wonder “what was the actual conflict in this movie?”