Stalker

Regardless of the tactless and unfounded comparisons between this movie and “The Perfect Guy” starring Michael Ealy, I was really very excited to see Stalker for a few reasons. The first reason was that it appeared to be a psychological thriller from the trailer and that’s a genre that I adore but nollywood doesn’t do too much of. The second reason was the character Jim Iyke played.

If you know anything about the usual Jim Iyke character, he usually involves a lot of ridiculously tight shirts, inside-the-house-wearing-shades, fake-phonetics-dropping kind of a character. You know the typical yo-yo-men type. But this trailer showed a demure Jim Iyke yet his character was supposed to be a stalker. This was intriguing from the get-go and Jim Iyke executed it to the tee. Not sure if it was so much the character being genuinely great or just the viewer being in awe of seeing Jim in this role, but that character was standout from scene one in this movie.

Nse Ikpe-Etim plays the recipient of the stalking in this movie. Her character is a renowned celebrity stylist who gets saved by Jim’s character, the corporate driver, after one night of event leaves her stranded with a flat in the middle of the night. She nearly becomes one of the “heads to bury with the late king” when Jim’s character swoops in, though reluctantly, to save her.

If there’s one really great thing about this movie (asides from seeing this version of Jim), it is how things aren’t what you expect. By saying this I mean two things. Firstly, the storyline does not go the way that you expect and the ending is not what you would have bargained for. But secondly, things aren’t what you expect in this movie, not just in the way it concludes but in the happenings of the movie. The things happening aren’t what they seem for the viewer and they aren’t what they seem for the characters.

Kudos to the writer in pulling that off and creating that aha-moment. Another kudos to the writer comes for the second part of the movie. In the second part of the movie, the script is flipped and they shock us by turning things around. The kudos to the writer here is for ending things when they are ended because one more scene would have led to a dragged out conclusion.

Having said that, I was not the biggest fan of the second part of the movie. The movie would probably have had more impact after the farce was revealed without “flipping the script”. Adding that other part almost took away from the greatness of the initial bits but still it was an enjoyable movie to watch.

It was an enjoyable movie to watch but it still had its shortcomings in performances and audio. The shortcomings in performance was in the role played by Caroline Danjuma. It was great to see her on screen again but apparently some things have not changed and her performance is still not at a level where it flows naturally. The audio in this movie also seemed to tune in and tune out at many different points, ruining the experience severally.

The writer and director alongside the lead performers in this movie did a great job with attention to detail and bringing a different storyline to the viewer. Regardless of its shortcomings, “Stalker” was still a great and easy watch. And to the critics that want to bombard with points about it’s unoriginality, please tell me what the last 100% original idea you heard was. The influences are not the issue but it is the creator’s ability to make it their own that matters.