Charge & Bail

You know that feeling when you are finally seated at a restaurant that has been creating a lot of buzz. You look at the menu, you see a picture of an incredibly photographed meal, you order it and sit eagerly waiting for its arrival. And then it gets there and it doesn’t quite look as great as it did in the photos but you are willing to overlook it with hopes that the taste makes up for it. But then you taste it, and suddenly wish you had stayed home and boiled Indomie and Egg instead? That’s what Charge And Bail is like.

The film is about a young privileged lawyer, Boma Ossai, who leaves a thriving career in the United States to return home. She gets her Nigerian law accreditation but has to serve her NYSC term before she can begin her dream job at her father’s firm. Instead of being zoned to her father’s opulent firm, she finds herself working with a charge and bail law firm who refuses to reject her. In her time there she finds herself enjoying the line of work more than she would have initially expected.

One credit to this film is that it takes the un-nollywood approach and just dives into the storyline from the legal angle. It focuses mainly on the career aspect and the work of Boma, even though most times the manner in which this ‘legal world’ is portrayed is highly uninspiring. The main critique of the film, however, is the writing. There really isn’t an emotional pull that is felt strongly by the audience. Even the moments when the character of Boma is transitioning from her high and mighty world and settling into the ‘gutters’ that are her new reality, there is zero to no “aaah” moment felt by the audience. Instead in one scene, Zainab is trotting around in front of the courthouse trying to convince people to sign up and in the next scene she miraculously has a line of individuals eager to sign.

Then there is the characters of Chigul and the guy constantly with her. In the end, these two have relevance but the way they are worked into the story is nothing short of unimaginative. Initially the two are just in the background constantly prolonging the runtime of the film with failed jokes and comedy that doesn’t add anything to the film and then suddenly Boma is attempting to give them a pep talk saying things like “if you want to be like us just start”. What kind of a pep talk is that? And what does it even mean?

Despite it’s potential, Charge and Bail is a bit haphazard. The story is its biggest weakness but the production quality is not far behind either. It really comes off as a film that was made so that inkblot can hit its annual target for the number of movies it makes each year.