Movie Review

                                 Catch.er

Catcher is a crime thriller, directed, produced and written by Walter ‘Waltbanger’ Taylaur. He presented a passed down whodunit in a decent way.

Catcher is a story about unraveling a murder case: Abiodun Bello (Beverly Naya), who is married to Tony Bello (Alex Ekubo), is murdered on the
night of their wedding anniversary and the police will stop at nothing to find the culprit. Every interrogation session leaves each suspect more likely to have committed the crime.

For the first time, in a long time, I was impressed with the scripting of a Nollywood movie. Very direct, thoughtful and witty dialogue; making Detective Komolafe (OC Ukeje) feel like a big bad wolf detector.

The plot of this movie is well worn. The tale of a murder case is an over flogged story in the Nollywood scene. From the first scene of the movie, the audience already knew what to expect. In a time when Nollywood has successfully added new and fresh ideas in their movie making skill, this movie did not leave me impressed.

Let’s talk the pace of this movie: SLOW; almost making the audience bored. A story that predictable, leaves the audience with a dire need of side attractions; say humour, or a strong twist that would have changed the story entirely, but I guess the director strongly needed to pass his message. Speaking of humour, this movie had free and easy opportunities to play in that space, but they were totally ignored. I mean, why else would Wofai Fada feature in a movie, if not for humour? Or Officer John? That guy’s character was struggling between being funny or sticking to the script and instructions of the director. It felt like he was yearning to freely breathe, but the room was too clustered up, for fresh air to come in.  

In my previous reviews, I have exceptionally commended the DOP’s of new Nollywood movies and the crew of this movie tops the chart for me. The creativity in the camera angles; picture quality and lighting, was top notch. I dedicate one of the movie's score to just the DOP. My only issue was the fact that the images looked squashed, as though the format the film was exported in was the wrong fit or something in that light.

I also had an issue with the makeup. It looked a little too much, making Kiki Omeili look older than I have ever seen her look in movies and Beverly Naya not as appealing as she is known to be.

The characters:

Special credit to ‘The Man’ OC Ukeje. It felt like he knew the movie was draggy, so he tried hard to compensate with his remarkable acting skills. He made being a detective feel like a cool job to do. He had the right amount of meanness and smartness that a detective needs to have.

Blossom Chukwujekwu was another thrill. His physique, voice and charisma has that touch of danger that his role needed. And when it was time to play lily-livered, to convince the police that he did not murder the deceased, he did not do badly at all.

I must have seen too many movies of Alex Ekubo playing funny, to have accepted him apt for his role in this movie; because there was something missing with his performance. It did not have the required fire and originality the husband of the deceased, who is accused for murder, needed to have. It just wasn’t believable.

It is with great sadness that I say that Gbenro Ajibade was off. I like him; and maybe started to like him more, when he got married to Osas, but unfortunately, my review is not based on my personal sentiment. Gbenro was not believable at all. The scene where he defended Blossom; the way he asked Blossom to leave the station, felt like they were still rehearsing and the director was going to cut and ask him to add more life.

In summary, the movie was not stimulating. On a scale of zero to five, this baby girl gives this movie a TWO AND A HALF, because a lot of things were off for me, like the end of the movie. Why did it end that way? It felt like they carried us high up in the air, on a journey of discovery and left us to fall down, with no care about how we land. Like how do you reveal the murderer like that? What happened to a back story? Were they trying to save time? Or what? 

I probably gave this movie this score, because I have seen a few good movies in recent times that had me all pumped up, like: The Women and TATU. So sadly, this movie brought down my spirit. But, you know what? Go see this movie and tell me what you feel in the comment section. More than ever, I want to hear your view. #Wink

Full Cast

OC Ukeje – Detective Komolafe

Berveley Naya – Abiodun Bello

Alex Ekubo – Tony Bello

Blossom Chukwujekwu – Brume

Tope Tedela – Officer John

Kiki Omeili – The Boss.

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……….Talk2urHommie……….