New Movie - “Unforgivable” Seeks To Redefine Yoruba Movie Culture With Desmond Elliot & Mike Ezuruonye,

About 5-6 years ago, the Nigerian movie industry, Nollywood took a shot at breaking with tradition, as fledgling local movie producers began to make films for tribal audiences. The Northerners had theirs, The
Igbos, bastions of enterprise, had discovered the magic long ago, the minorities from the south, Ikwerres, Ibibios, Annangs, Ijaws, and others commenced building their regional movies. The Yorubas, even though, they’ve already begun earlier, still were in the ‘teething’ stage, with a focus on mainstream Nollywood, still hampering their local-language productions.

But then came ‘jenifa’!

Produced and starred in by delectable actress, Funke Akindele, the thrilling movie was an instant hit. Racking up monumental sales figures, and amazing reviews, the movie opened up a new world of possibilities, which never before were appreciated. Yoruba movies had come to stay, for with the success of Jenifa,  a panorama of endless opportunities, was made bare. The Yoruba Nollywood, exploded. Movies were turned out in daily droves, floating out the conveyor belt of marketers, pretty, and begging to be seen.

But with increase, comes competition, and in competition, the law of Natural Selection rules. You either shape up, adapt, improve….or face looming extinction.

So the quality has stepped up. It has to. Yoruba movie makers have upped the ante. Production now reeks of glowing class; the cast has hit a tremendous upward curve, delivering their script with adroitness, and conviction worthy of the glittering Hollywood. The scripts too have become stellar. Gone are the days of written verses with an abundance of verb-noun disagreement, and a comedy of errors. New tricks are being pulled out of the bag. A popular trend has seen non-Yoruba-speaking superstars add the ‘extra’ advantage to some movies by taking up roles.

A futuristic example is “Unforgivable”, another tribal movie produced by actress, Dayo Amusa. Let’s shelve the fact that it’s directed by uber-hottie, Desmond Elliot, the movie also has Mike Ezuruonye, a thespian of Igbo accent, set to do his thing. One only wonders how he’ll pull off a script laden with tongue-twisters of the Yoruba language. According to insiders, his mastery of the language is far from perfection, but he’s been shooed in, all the same. Other stars such as Bukky Wright, Desmond Elliot, Faithia Balogun, Bimbo Thomas, Iyabo Ojo and  Niyi Johnson make up the cast.

What Mike Ezuruonye lacks in delivery, he makes up for in ‘star dust’. The former Glo ambassador sure holds his own in the annals of Nollywood and definitely will add some needed colour to the flick. The puzzling trend is set to continue, but when this novel move becomes stale, the search for the next selling point will commence and we all can’t wait to see what other tricks lie hidden in their bag.

Who knows? Maybe they’ll get to pull me out of their bags. (laughs)