The Promotion

The Promotion begins with a delightfully charming opening credits sequence that clearly shows what it aims to be (a light-hearted airy comedy) and although to some extent it achieves this, it was ultimately plagued by some common pitfalls of a low budget production and a poor story. The movie starring Femi Branch and Rita Edward tells the (sometimes funny, sometimes annoying) story of a hardworking insurance agent who is given a task in order to earn a promotion and ultimately whether or not you enjoy the film depends on how interested you are in seeing the (always missed) Femi Branch do a Michael Jackson impression (Spoiler: He’s actually not so bad).

The movie is littered with funny scenes but easily the brightest spot in it is the relationship between Lade (Rita Edward) and her sidekick Chinyere aka Chin Chin Bebe aka the Queen of ideas which gave us priceless lines like ‘My spirit doesn’t lie to me’ and ‘He’s from the North-South-East’ as well as the most truly insane plot arc in the movie. A close second has to be the performance of Femi branch as the perfect husband and his charming scenes with Rita Edward. Also the movie has a great soundtrack (major shout-out to the movie for giving me the first song from a Nigerian film I’ve ever wanted to Shazam) especially the bar-dropping soundtrack during its arc where it parodied a Wizkid/Olamide hybrid.

However, a lot of this movie does not make any sense and a lot of this movie isn’t overly funny. This is especially clear during the films poor final act where it dives head first off a cliff, abandons all logic/loses its charm and frustratingly feels like the story was just throwing various cliché comedy arcs at the wall to see what sticks and evokes a laugh. Its biggest weakness though has to be the performances by the supporting cast and its poor setting that gave it a distinct low-budget feel (office is clearly a house etc.). There was also an interesting mother daughter dynamic and subplot of neglect that the movie dips its toe into but fails to truly examine.
Ultimately if you come into this movie with pretty low expectations, enjoy a good soundtrack and objectively find middle-aged women chanting ‘we are not old we are young’ hilarious then this movie is for you, if not, maybe just skip ahead to the Femi Branch impersonation.