Hide ‘N’ Seek

Nigerian politics meets crime and action in this movie, a description that, by itself, is not sufficient to narrow down what recent Nollywood film you may be referring to. These plot ingredients are beginning to populate in Nollywood, but the final product can range from great to terrible. Hide ‘N’ Seek places somewhere around the mean of these two extremes, but just barely; it is not without its flaws.

As has become a routine, Hide ‘N’ Seek is let down by a poorly put together story, hard to follow or recall because it did not always make a logical progression. Everything centers around Dr. Arzika (Sani Mu’azu), a permanent secretary in the ministry of general Infrastructure, who has diverted a total of $13.6 million from Nigeria’s coffers, and now seeks to transfer same abroad with the help of Ted Lugard (Fares Boulos) and Kisa Sesay (Jeff Bankz), two expatriates familiar with Nigeria’s government corruption and keen to receive their shares of it. A small group of young people plan to steal this money (which is conveniently being held as cash in two Ghana must Go Bags), comprising James (Kunle Remi), a DSI agent with a chip on his shoulder, Efe Iwara, Arzika’s right hand man who seeks to betray him, as well as Ivie (Enado Odigie), Pelumi (Tosin Ibitoye) and Wangi (Adaobi Dibor).

Simple as this premise looks, this band of thieves is anything but. For starters, they are never actually revealed to be working as a team until the end, and even then the movie closes leaving you with more questions than answers. The writers do a shoddy job of bringing them together and even worse at explaining their connection. A few flashbacks are used to reconstruct their relationship halfway through the movie, but it is clear the writers, Bode Asiyanbi and Tolu Awobiyi, do not have much expertise with this narrative style and should have stuck with making these relationships unfold in real time first before they set out on their mission. It would have sacrificed some of the movie’s suspense and plot twists, but being able to understand and follow the journey would have made for a rewarding payoff.

Hide ‘N’ Seek makes no secret of its intention to be a close copy of foreign spy and murder mystery blockbusters that swallow big budgets to then produce bigger gross earnings. And in this way it stands alone. King Of Thieves had Lagos’ political history and criminal underworld as its ties to a Nigerian identity, Shanty Town drew connections between lowly prostitutes and high-rise politics, Gangs Of Lagos portrayed the Eyo, Lagos Island’s prominent masquerade as a deadly gang. “Hide N Seek” holds no special affiliations to Nigeria outside its general setting, so it can be assumed that Bode Asiyanbi sought to create a film that would hold its own anywhere in the world. That, sadly, is hardly realised. The film gallops past one foreign trope after another, from starring Kunle Remi in the cliche role as James, the machismo police officer whose overconfidence in his abilities means he can make the law whatever he wants it to be. It is a role that Kunle was born to play, but one that has been seen too many times in the past.

A few other overused tropes make their way here—there is a chessboard that is not properly utilised, a villain kills someone by a simple snapping of the neck, the tech person in the group shuts down cameras by smashing buttons on a laptop. It has its moments where it does live up to its outsized ambitions, though, like in a few decently-executed action sequences or the occasional plot twist that doesn’t feel like it was made simply for the shock factor. But make no mistakes, nearly every great moment this movie serves will need you to work for it, that is, to trudge through a few scenes as you try to keep track of who is on what side and where the ever-elusive bag of money currently is. To distract you from the constant chase, the film throws in a number of secondary characters and plot lines—like Nenrot (Uche Nwaefuna), James’ untrusting girlfriend whose paranoia leads her to trail him to the hotel where most of the movie is set, or Aisha (Bimbo Ademoye) and Chidi (Akah Nnani), hotel staff who, like every other character, get their own scene with the money as it passes from hand to hand. But these additions ultimately do Hide ‘N’ Seek more harm than good. A little bit of humor can be a good addition to even the most serious movie, but not when it is added in isolated scenes, where the thriller movie suddenly becomes a Sunday evening comedy series on African Magic. Also unwelcome are the love triangles the movie hastily creates that add little to its essence.

In the end Hide ‘N’ Seek achieves very little. It cannot make a pointed discourse around corruption in Nigerian politics because it did little to espouse that topic beyond what we all already knew. Its crafty storyline can be commended, but it often gets too complicated for the writers’ own good. Maybe something can be said of its potential indicating that Nollywood is looking beyond the easy and bland set ups and aiming to produce craft of the highest standards, but it is hard to make excuses for a film in which I saw a patient audibly flatline on an ECG monitor without any leads connected to his body to take the readings. There is still a long way to go.