Crushed

You know that new but slowly becoming popular arrangement in Hollywood where an nontraditional movie studio hires an A-List director (See Netflix with First They Killed My Father by Angelina Jolie and Beasts of No Nation by Cary Fukunaga) to churn out a movie with critical acclaim. I have a hunch someone in IrokoTV thought to themselves; “Hey, it’s working for Netflix, Amazon. Why shouldn’t it work for IROKOtv?” Cue Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen with 20 years of Nollywood under his belt. So I must admit before this movie even began I had expectations. Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen has been a staple and standard bearer in the Nigerian movie industry for as long as I have been in the audience. So this seemed to me like that sort of movie that could be a goal or miss. I was wrong. It sort of comfortably fell right in the middle (sort of like an unnamed Brazilian at the world cup).

Crushed tells of a woman who starts seeing a man from her past as people think she’s going insane. It was produced and directed by Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen in collaboration with ROK Studios, and stars Seun Akindele, Sambasa Nzeribe, Michael Isokpan, Lilian Esoro, Efosa Efef Iyamu, and Matilda Obaseki. The direction of the movie was proficient and nothing less than you would expect but honestly did not spring any surprises (good or bad) on the viewer. Although it did seem like they were countless scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, chopped off while they were editing the movie. Even though it is perhaps in an effort to keep the movie short and streamable, it has the unwanted effect of rushing the movie in a thoroughly unsatisfactory way, diffusing the tension and ruining any chance of it becoming a bonafide slow-burning thriller. Also, there were some clumsy choices that I don’t want to go into it without giving too much about the movie away but I was left with a burning desire to ask Mr Lancelot about his fascination with clubs as settings for scenes that are supposed to have maximum emotional impact. I have to admit, first time I’m ever saying this, but the score of the movie was pretty great. I can swear I heard some titanic in there.

More interesting were the performances by the cast which was perhaps not as masterful but carried out with enough zest and enthusiasm you will forgive their shortcomings. The tortured wife in particular (played by Lilian Esoro), as the film centres on her, has a Herculean task to carry and she throws herself into her performance so that despite some poorly delivered monologues here and there, its ultimately an A for effort. As the movie progresses she became more and more convincing as a woman devolving with paranoia and fear and in scenes with Mark (her psycho stalker) she was untouchable and utterly convincing playing off his manic persona excellently. On a side note, Mark (Sambasa Nzeribe) is creepy and intense. I will give him that and my favourite thing about this movie is his affectation (fingers crossed you see it too). I do wish they had spent just a moment to explain the method to Mark’s madness but hey you can’t always get what you want.

Just between us though, it did not stop me from wondering the COMPLETELY UNFAIR THOUGHT what the performance would have looked like in the hands of an actress more adept at extracting dread from the viewer as it sometimes that the role was entirely too out of her comfort zone. In her defence, although his (Seun Akindele) performance as the husband confusingly dealing with a wife sinking into paranoia/protector albeit a bit erratic in terms of quality was convincing, they both only looked comfortable in their newly-weds routine than anything else. The supporting cast also blew hot and cold through the movie with the banter between the Lillian and Matilda making me smiling throughout and the PI singlehandedly delivers both easily the best scene and worst scenes of the movie.
All in all, while it might not be the Nigerian “Obsessed” with the screenplay having unfulfilled potential, if I haven’t given you enough reason to see this from this movie. Here’s some. Think of it as “How not to deal with a dangerous stalker 101″ or “Top Ten Reasons Not to Hire Nigerian PIs”.

Plus it’s worth it, trust me, just to see the last baffling but charming last act of the movie. And if all that doesn’t work, well according to Lancelot, “This is not just one of those films you would joke with… It’s intense… (It’s) bold and beautiful”. See if you agree.