Ile Owo (House of Money)

Dare Olaitan’s Ile Owo is unfortunately another victim of ambitions that are thwarted by smaller budgets and ineffective writing. The movie is the story of Busola, a young naive Christian girl, who meets and falls for a young billionaire (played by Efa Iwara). Unbeknownst to her, he and his family have a history of covert activities that may end up putting her life in danger.

Busola is played by Immaculata Oko-Kasum who is a seemingly new face (at least to me). Immaculata does well enough attempting to embody the naivete and cluelessness that is required of Busola but she doesn’t quite have the prowess yet to convince effortlessly. As such a lot of the movie ends up needing to rely on the music to move it along. This is not solely the fault of the actress, because from the very start the movie establishes that the music will be used as the steering wheel, the engine and the chasis of this vehicle – all in one.

At the start of the movie, there is a narrator talking over a brief animation that is used to set the background of the story before the main characters are revealed. It worked great here as this brief intro helped to make the world of the characters and the stakes involved feel a lot larger than the budget would have obviously allowed. Despite this though, the budgetary shortcomings shine through in the CGI moments starting from the scenes with the hands stretching out of the walls and pretty much every scene afterwards.

There are quite a number of gaping plot holes in Ile Owo that cannot simply be excused as artistic license or ‘implied’ moments. Some scenes in the movie are skillfully able to tell the audience what is implied such as the moment after the pastor falls and looks at Busola then the audience before speaking. Here it is clear what his stakes and motivations are because it has been clearly set up. However, for many other scenes there are a lot of things left up in the air. For instance why does no one ask what happened to Busola’s mother? How come Busola’s father was immediately okay with talking with a spiritual figment hanging from the roof of his room? What does the sacrifice truly entail if all the women are still alive? From my understanding of what Bisola Aiyeola’s character says in the beginning, the sacrifice is supposed to happen every 25 years so how come all the women also appear young? Do they also get eternal youth? It’s as though the writer assumes that the necklace possessing Busola’s brain is also possessing the brain of the audience so that we ask no questions and just nod along.

Ile Owo clearly seems to take a lot of inspiration from Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” type storytelling. And although the film starts off quite intriguing, it doesn’t appear that the writers have taken any inspiration from Peele’s actual writing skills. Either that or a lot of the movie was left on the chopping block such that what we are left with is jumbled up chaos.