Movie Review

                                Excess Luggage

Excess Luggage is a comedy flick that features a range of exciting actors like: Queen Nwokoye, Mike Ezuruonye, Ik Ogbonna, Nikky Ufondu and the eccentric Denrele Edun. IK Ogbonna and Damijo Efe Young collaborated to deliver this hilarious film.

Excess Luggage is a rural-meet-urban story. It tells a tale of an extremely unrefined village man (Enyinna), who, with his family, visits their “sophisticated” and wealthy cousin (Douglas) - and the nuances that goes with such visits.

It is no news that comedy films are
easy-sells in Nigeria, so one should not be surprised when most Nollywood films tow this route.  Every scene of this movie made the director’s strong intent to crack his audience up - glaring. Efforts were put in by all the characters to contribute their own bit to the humour in this movie; but for one or two “offs”, I would have said it had a perfect delivery.

This is yet another case of an over-flogged story line. The tale of an illiterate villager coming to a city, has been told a thousand and one times again. From the days of Osuofia in London, to Mr. Ibu and Jenifa. Well, I guess with these kinds of movies, the delivery is all that matters.

So let us talk delivery:

If you are a regular in my movie review world, you would know that the cinematography and lighting of the new Nollywood movies (like I like to call it) is an angle that I am excited about; the crew of Excess Luggage, delivered right on this one. Excellent picture quality and the new trademark of Nollywood movies, ‘the drone shot’, was expertly delivered, making Amen Estate look like the only place in Lagos to live, in terms of beauty.

 Whoever was behind the sound effect needs to be applauded. They played “Tom and Jerry” with our minds and this gave the movie an interesting feel. I loved it!

(Watch audience review here)

However, in the bid to amuse the audience, a few points were off track: like I thought we had moved past the era of a dark-skinned kid growing up to be a full-fledged fair-skinned man, really? How was it that Chukwudoro who was a dark-skinned little boy, grew up to be Mike Ezuruonye? That was sadly wrong!

Then the characters of Enyinna and Ugonma, howbeit funny, were overplayed. It just is not possible that you go to someone’s house and dominate like that i.e brush your mouth anywhere, find firewood from God-knows-where and cook outside someone else’s house, then have the guts to shout at that person for confronting you, barge into the person’s kitchen late at night and confront the person. No! It was too much.  

Finally, the flashback; what was that for? To pay homage to the oldie Fred Amata? Or to show that Chukwudoro was once dark? (which was a mistake that could have been easily avoided if that scene was chopped off). Or perhaps, to connect Chukwudoro’s no-nonsense character to his mother? Whatever it was for, I felt that scene was totally unnecessary.

The Characters:

This is my best part. The movie had a lineup of credible characters; they were all impressive. If not for a few odds, I would have crowned this movie the best line up of characters.

IK Ogbonna has finally been beaten by the bug that has been flying around the Nollywood scene; the bug of not only featuring in movies, but also making them.

IK was surely tired of directors boxing him into a stereotype space of the bland lover boy character, that he just had to break out from. It felt like he said to himself, “If these directors won’t give me a chance, I will take it myself!”. So he sat and wrote the one thing that he knows how to play well. Enyinna, which to me, is his best delivery ever. Thumbs up! 

When it comes to Queen Nwokoye, I have just one instruction, a very light instruction: once you see Queen Nwokoye in a movie, make sure you watch that movie. She is an original. A natural. She is exciting. You can tell I was impressed with her acting, right? Okay.

Now Denrele was that kind of extra that you are sure you will get tired of eventually but ends up surprising you. We will like more of Denrele in movies, if he learns to tone down the energy a little.  

Then their son was not impressive at all. He struggled to hold back his laughter almost all through the movie. I mean, it is cute to see a little child continually hold back laughter but, it is just not movie-credible.

All other characters in the movie were commendable, from Mike Ezuruonye reminding us why we love him and making us yearn to see more of him, to Lisa Omorodion, whom I haven’t seen in a movie before but was tremendously thrilled by how natural her silliness was.

In conclusion, this movie will keep you at the edge of your seat, eagerly waiting for the next ludicrous thing that would happen. On a scale of zero to five, this baby girl gives this movie a THREE because even though it had its glitches, you will not have a dull moment watching this one. Plus, the lessons of happiness and contentment, howbeit cliché, were worth picking up.

I recommend this movie to any and everyone who is in need of a good laugh. This is a movie you will see after a stressful day and feel truly be refreshed.

Go, see the movie, have fun and tell me what you feel about it in the comment section below. #Wink

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Full Cast

Chukwudoro Douglas Ekwunife – Mike Ezuruonye

Biance Ekwunife – Nikky Ufondu

Ugonma -  Queen Nwokoye

Enyinna –IK Ogbonna

Andy – Denrele Edun

PA – Lisa Omoridion

Chukwudoro’s father – Fred Amata

Chukwudoro’s mother – Shaffy Bello

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……….Talk2urHommie……….