The Emerge Review: MOVIE REVIEW: Nolly wood takes off on The Last Flight To Abuja

Award winning director Obi Emelonye must be a very happy man right now. .. Do you you remember The Mirror Boy? Winner of Break through Artiste Monaco film festival 2011, winner Best young actor African Movie Academy Awards 2011, Two prestigous Screen nation awards 2011. Well, this is the guy behind the movie and he’s done it again!

The memories from the huge success of his latest movie last Flight to Abuja must be like golden pearls right now! That’s no exagerration.. here’s the gist. The movie was premeired last Friday at The Palms Shopping Mall with huge media presence, talk about celebrities! Corporate Nigeria was present too.. big names like Diamond bank.. blah blah blah. Ok lets cut to the chase. I wasn’t watching the movie with the eye of a critic. I left my critic lenses at home but this is what I have to say.

As the saying goes; a good story alone doesn’t make a good movie, there are other elements too. This movie had them. With realistic acting and compelling dialogue, the likes of Jim Iyke, Omotala Jalade, Hakeem K Kazeem, Ali Nuhu and Jide Kosoko boldly brought the directors concept to light; fluid movements and all. The movie is a portrayal of loopholes in the aviation industry. I have been wondering if it is a coincidence that this movie is coming at a time that the aviation industry in Nigeria just suffered a fatal blow. You know what I am talking about rite? Of course! The dana plana crash! God bless our souls. Now, its no gainsaying when we say that Nollywood has taken off.. Maybe you are still stuck with the likes of those movies we used to watch when we were kids.. Nneka The Pretty Serpent and Living In Bondage .. What of Isakaba? Don’t want to go into the hilarious antics they dished out to us in the name of effects rite now,no disrespect to old Nollywood but new Nollywood has gone past that level, at least today we can listen to intresting dailogue, enjoy an intrigiung plot and even spare our selves the horror of predicting the next sequel of events, the next scene, even the next lines! You did that with the old Nollywood movies rite? Well, everythings changed now.

The movie is about this company that records huge profit in business so it decides to give the members of the board of directors a treat - An all expense paid flight to Abuja, can you dig that? With all the arrangements made, the duo and other passengers board the Flamingo flight to Abuja on their all expense paid trip.. well, all expense paid trip turned out to be the trip they all wished they never made. Sadly the plane crash landed somewhere in Ibadan. Why? - technical issues. The same technical issues we’ve been battling all our lives! Go watch the movie for more gist. The acting was good, camera actions and movements where also commendable, good plot, good storyline just that they could have done better with the quality of the camera as the movie appeared blurred on the gaint cinema screen. The camera also failed to project colour in the movie. Asides that, every other thing was commendable - The crashing plane appeared real to some extent, it surpassed the normal Nollywood fake crashes! lol. View pics below. Thanks to Bella Naija!

                                 Obi Emelonye

Halima Abubakar

Uti Nwachuckwu

Damilola Adegbite

Nice

Mabel Makun

Adams

Captain Matthew & Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde

Yaw and AY

Mabel & AY Makun

Jeffery Daniels

Anthony Monjaro

Piece written by Cynthia Ugbe

Cynthia Ugbe is a Banker and a Graduate of Theater arts from the University of Nigeria Nsukka. She is also a Model, aspiring Movie Director and Movies Editor of TER. Cynthia writes from Lagos.