No Way Through

Thirty minutes into ‘No Way Through’, Christian (Ikechukwu Onunaku), an NDEA agent gone rogue, embarks on a mission to avenge his dead partner. In the bright light of midday, he pulls up to the villain’s street decked in all black—shirt, pants, cap and kerchief. To scale the target’s wall, he pulls a ladder out of his Duffel Bag of Wonders. He climbs the ladder and jumps onto the villain’s balcony—a millisecond before the mounting soundtrack’s last urgent note.

From the kitchen window, he watches the help, and as she leaves, looking dutifully straight ahead, he follows behind. He moves through the house, past the room where the chief henchman is, of all things, reading a book, past another room where the help is being spun by her lover — one of the thugs on our villain’s payroll — with about as much deftness as a marionette. He makes his way up a flight of stairs with the confidence of a man paying the bills, and then swings open the door on the drug lord and his wife. His gun is pointed at Apostle (Chidi Mokeme) and his finger is on the trigger. Does he shoot? No. They’ve carried on with this burlesque for this long, they might as well continue, besides there are nearly an hour and a half left to fill. They might as well carry on. So he does not shoot the villain. He instead decides to engage him in a bit of tête-à-tête, making a big show of it until the Apostle’s henchmen come to get him. This scene is sufficient to understand the type of movie this is, but it is not the only one. The film is rife with other ludicrous events.

In another scene there is an open air shootout at very close range in which every bullet… is not even dodged, because that would have been a little better, but somehow miraculously misses Christian. He takes shelter in an abandoned building and a gunshot from one of Apostle’s men sets fire to it, and like a proper B rate action film, the goons rush to proclaim him dead without actually looking for a body.

The whole film is a travesty that will leave the likes of Bruce Willis and Van Damme shaking their heads in disappointed disgust. To make this even worse, the producers do not employ extras to make the scene somewhat believable, or at least cordone off the filming area from passersby, so real life motorcyclists and shop owners in the area simply gaze on with mild interest whilst a supposed shootout unfolds. No one asks for proof of Christian’s death—a video, an arm, or even a wisp of hair—not even Rachael (Chioma Chukwuka), Apostle’s wife, who has the only functioning brain amongst the whole lot. Instead, they gather together to celebrate their victory over Christian and mourn the death of one of their men he killed.

Apostle makes a forceful speech while Rachael stands by looking as though stifling a yawn, slow sentimental music plays and the men in black stand with heads bowed and of course with hands clasped before them and grim faces like proper Nollywood thugs. Apostle raises a fist and a toast for their dead comrade and this attempt at emotional manipulation not only fails but is irritating. The speech ends and instead of shedding a tear, you are either laughing at the theatricality of the entire scene, or cringing at it, most likely both.

There is no area in which the film triumphs, save for the pristine visuals, which being the project of a major streaming platform, should be a given. The sound is scratchy, and in scenes shot in enclosed walls, almost echoey. The VFX is terrible—flames from a burning building seem straight from a mobile game, and the smoke, like fuzzy pencil sketches. The soundtrack is composed almost entirely of Amapiano songs; the film’s composer is most likely a fan and simply decided to use his personal playlist without a care as to whether it was suitable. I hesitate to condemn the actors.

For most part of the film Funke Akindele appears visibly bored. Being an ace filmmaker herself, she could most likely tell how watery the script was. Chioma Chukwuka does a better job in hiding her boredom and does her best with the hackneyed role she is given but if the foundation is destroyed what can the gifted do? The decent effort put up by the major cast is simply not enough to cover for the poor script.

‘No Way Through’ is in the group of increasingly stodgy Nollywood satires — alongside Toyin Abraham’s ‘Ijakumo‘ and Bolanle Austen- Peters’ ‘Man of God‘ — aiming to expose the truth behind the Janus faced pastors and pastoresses thriving on the sufferings of the people. Here the filmmakers aim for a complexity of character that we usually see in Hollywood movies. Apostle and Rachael threaten, torture and kill but they also pray, anoint themselves with oil and ask for God’s forgiveness. The irony of their characters is however overstretched and only leaves you wondering what we are supposed to see them as; clinically insane, morally confused or just a bunch of jokers. The filmmakers took different elements from Hollywood without knowing how best to combine them into a sensible whole.

It seems there is no way through this tunnel of wasted chances and unfulfilled expectations that is the Nollywood scene, but I continue to hold on to hope that our filmmakers will collectively abandon this unending game of catch up with the western world and instead embark on discovering an authentic Nigerian self.