Gold Statue

There is nothing I can quite compare to the joy of getting to the end of this movie! And no, it’s not quite what you are thinking.

Gold Statue is the story of two friends who, upon hearing of an ancestral undiscovered gold statue in the land of Ilesha, go on a hunt to find it. Their road to discovery leads them to a maximum security prison in Ilesha where one ends up getting convicted in his bid to secure the gold.

On paper it’s a story like we are not quite used to seeing – it’s brave, it’s daring and it’s impressive. The resources involved in pulling it off also show that the project is not child’s play and it seems no costs were spared – from the prison yard, to the costumes, to the shots and everything in between. This is probably one of the few Nigerian movies that make any significant attempt at world building beyond parlor and kitchen, and manage a decent conviction level.

One other thing that definitely helps with the world building in this film are the actors and their performances. There is ample cameo appearances in this movie from many of your favorites, most of them arguably unnecessary. However, they were introduced and excused away quietly enough that this ploy at securing an audience is easy to ignore. In the lead is Gabriel Afolayan, who does an incredible job of owning the character. From his transition from Adewale Esho to Samuel Okon (don’t worry, you’ll understand if you watch the movie), he doesn’t skip a beat. He takes a movie that would easily have been a slug race and elevates it at least to a turtle race. Then there is the main cast of prisoners, who are funny and endearing as well. All other supporting cast also do a decent job with their characters.

Having said all that, all that glitters is not gold here. There are multiple discrepancies in this film – many of them unsuited for a movie of this caliber. The most glaring of them all is the graphics. The first shot we get of the Ilesha prison is so obviously a poorly done green screen effect that you almost wonder if it was an intentional joke. Then there are the helicopter moments or the gun shot sequences where no one even seems to be trying not to insult the intelligence of the audience members.

Then there is the quality of the whole production in general. From the trailer you can tell that the video is intended to be crisper, but for some reason the version we are saddled with on Amazon Prime Video is 480p at best and difficult to appreciate. And do we have time to talk about how the approximations of the gold statue keeps changing? I think we will hold off on that one for now.

At the core of the film as a source of entertainment, this is a very difficult 2hrs and 26 minutes to sit through. Watching this drag on is tedious. There are many scenes that could have been done without and many dialogues and monologues that could have been eliminated. The movie starts off steady paced at the beginning, drags through the middle and starts to speed up while twisting and turning at the end. Is the journey of watching it worth it? That’s for you to decide. The one thing that we can at least say is that the end is satisfactory and doesn’t leave you hissing and sighing throughout.