Alan Poza

You know the amazing thing about publicity is that it can make the simplest (and some times the most ridiculous) things look like heaven on earth. If you pay attention to any Nigerian entertainment site then you must have been smashed and bamboozled with the promos of ‘Alan Poza’ at one point or the other.

One thing that struck me the most was the central assumption the movie was being built off of. The story is about a bad boy philandering casanova (so far so good)… played by O.C. Ukeje (???). That last bit got me because no where in my wildest imagination would I have pit O.C as a casanova type. From the onset Mr. Novia had his work set out, in my mind at least, to be able to create an atmosphere where it would be believable that O.C. is a player.

O.C, as I have established review after review, is a fantastic actor and I would watch ‘almost’ anything solely because of his participation in it (I say ‘almost’ to be safe). However, no matter how much he tried and brought to this movie, which in retrospect was a lot, I just couldn’t see him as the casanova type.

The setting and the build of the movie didn’t help the situation. The narrative kept dabbling between O.C having an aside with the camera, real narrative and voice-overs in past tense that I was really not sure what direction we were going with this. There was supposedly love or emotion or some sexual tension building up between O.C and Beverly’s character which I never caught on to until they verbalized it. And at that point you’re just like “whoa really? Y’all like each other? When did this happen”. It’s almost as though you’re watching this movie but you’re not sensing anything until it is vocalized by one of the characters. So at each point you’re left wondering “what is going on now? Are we still on the original plan or did the story change direction between scenes”

In the end, I get what the story and directing and acting is aiming for but unfortunately that mark was missed by so many notches and the movie just fell flat not long after it started. I kept waiting for this movie to ‘start’ and for a miracle to happen even till the last minute of the movie but it never really did.

There are a couple funny moments in this movie and I count them all on one hand. Some of the comedy comes off as forced and you end up shaking your head instead of laughing. I really disliked what the movie was doing with music, or should I say not doing with music. There were so many quiet scenes in this movie (by quiet I mean devoid of music) that I just wanted to play my own music in the background so the scene didn’t seem so awkward.

But the movie wasn’t all negatives, the only single beacon of light was the performances. Not all the performances were great but there were a couple standouts. For instance Okey Uzoeshi just takes me to heaven and back. I am always delighted to watch him on screen because watching his progress is an amazing experience. Sylvia Oluchy is an actress that has my undying love. Her first couple scenes in this movie, I can’t vouch for but her last few were fire. The girl just has an energy about her and when she goes off it’s almost as though she’s standing in front of you.

Unfortunately I was not impressed with Belinda’s final emotional scene neither was I impressed with Beverly Naya’s performance. Quite frankly, I think Beverly is better in this movie than she was in “home in exile” and the likes. However, I don’t think she has quite grasped the concept of showing emotions and having more than one expression on screen.

For a comedy, Alan Poza is very unfunny. As a romance flick, it is very confusing. And for a drama, it is very chaotic. In the end O.C still didn’t come off to me as the player type. I was not certain how the heck anything happened really. And all I took away from that was wondering whether dobox.tv gives refunds.