Hotel Babylon

They say don’t judge a book by a cover, and they couldn’t be more correct because if one was to judge this entire movie by the poster, which depicts a stunning Ramsey Nouah spotting a gun overlooking a hotel, one would go in thinking that the film was some sort of Ghanaian James Bond flick.

But here’s a couple things that a James Bond flick has that this movie did not: intrigue, action, proper lighting, actual actors and beautiful scenes. The only thing this movie could possibly boast of in connection with the James Bond franchise is a decent lead actor.

Hotel Babylon follows a gang of four who attack a hotel at night in search of a guest in possession of five million dollars. The action begins as soon as the movie starts and the story is developed via a vantage point kind of scenario. The build of the story in and of itself is good, the story has a structure and would be a fun read.

However, it was lost in translation from paper to screen. The poor production values, plus the confused direction in conjunction with some terrible actors make Hotel Babylon a drag to watch. After the first 15 minutes of the movie, I was ready for the movie to be over. It says so much about a movie that after sitting through the entire length of it the audience is still not certain what emotions exactly they are supposed to feel towards the villain: do I feel sympathy because of his struggles, anger at his violence, or a sense of pity because his is a story that’s common in our society?

Whatever the case maybe Ramsey did a fantastic job with doing the best out of the little that was giving to him and portrays the villain with ease. His every breath, his every motion, his every smile is in character and I do not blame Kobi Rana for saying that the reason he cast Mr. Nouah is because “…he doesn’t act the role, he lives it”.

However, the same cannot be said about many others in the movie. Mr. Rana assembles quite the ensemble cast with Ngissah, Hayford, Amugi, McBrown and Gardiner then the casting gets lazy and the rest of the movie is filled with pretty faces that struggle to convince anyone of their acting abilities.