The movie At Home and Abroad premiered at the
Odeon Cinema Greenwich on Friday 20th July 2014. As usual there was
pomp and peagantry on the red carpet with members of the cast and crew,
Nollywood UK giants, promoters and fans of the Nollywood Movie industry on the
red carpet.
Prominent amongst those on the red carpet
included Script Writer and Producer, Toyin Moore, Director Ruke Amata, Kevwe Ogunje, Theordora Ibekwe Oyebade, Ayo
Oyebade, Collins Archie-Pierce, Sheyman McLuving, Pauline Long, Kenneth Benson,
Yvonne Hayes, Danny Erskrine, Ngozi Ezelu, Toksy B, Councillor Anna Mbachu,
Nelson Spyke, Riyike Alayande, Tolulope Yesufu to mention but a few.
The movie had Toyin Moore and Micheal Cliff Morris as Executive Producers, was directed
by Ruke Amata and produced by Toyin Moore. The movie featured Ken Smart, Yvonne Hayes, Zara Johns, Kevwe Ogunje
(Bamidele) Esther Cooper, Issabela Botu, Theodora Ibekwe-Oyebade,
NG Thompson, Danny Erskine; Tolulope Yesufu, Marie Gomez, Toyin Moore, Jazzie Fizzle etc.
Storyline: At Home Abroad is a gentle
nudge to Africans in diaspora, to remind them of the basic ethics from Africa
and the importance of raising their kids right. The movie is about Bamidele, a young man traveling ”abroad” for the first time to meet his biological father who
until a few days before his arrival, had no clue he even existed. Bamidele is
thrown into this whirlwind of sorts where everything is different.
The movie attempted to demonstrate the uniqueness, challenges and strengths, as well as the rich cultural heritage of Africa and struggles people face in adapting to life abroad. It also tries to showcase the realities of life abroad culturally
compared to what it is in Africa. Steeped in
Comedy and a whole lot of Drama. The movie was put together from the series At Home Abroad
which is set to start airing soon.
This is a real life issue
and the story needs to be told. In Africa, children are brought up to respect
elders including their teachers at school. If children in Africa misbehave, there
is a measure of discipline that follows. However, in the diaspora, children
have been given too much rights that if you touch a child, it is called child
abuse, so children in the diaspora are spoilt. In Africa, a child cannot call
an elder by name, but in the diaspora, a teenager calls someone of their
parent’s age by name.
I must therefore commend
Toyin for attempting to tell this powerful truth. However, probably because the
movie is just a part of the series, parts of the story were not left concluded.
Bamidele was bullied in school and although we do not encourage violence, a
typical boy from Nigeria would have stood up for himself even if verbally. I
would have liked to see more of Bamidele and African culture being highlighted
in the second half of the movie and his making a positive influence on the
siblings. That said ang bearing in mind my thoughts, I think it was a good
storyline and would like to award 8
out of 10
Sound quality: The sound quality was not
particularly good. Where it was good, it was good, but where it was bad, it was
awful. There were buzzy sounds in most scenes and especially when the camera is
switched between characters. There was at least one occasion when there was a
loss of when Ayo and Bunmi were chatting. In that particular scene, all one could here was music playing and then
Ayo saying "Baby it's not like that" when Bunmi left crying. Also
there was loss of sound where Bamidele was being bullied
In its current state and in view of the afore-mentioned, I would award a 5 out of a possible 10 for sound.
Picture quality: In my view the picture quality was not excellent, yet it was not bad. It was at best average. The picture quality was a bit hazy and blurry in some scenes. An example where the picture was shaky was in the classroom when the teacher was speaking with Bamidele. Not really much to say about picture quality but I will give this category a 6 out of a possible 10
Cast: The role of Bamidele played by Kewve Ogunje and
Ayo played by Ken Smart brought the whole movie to light. I must say I was very
impressed with the both characters. Ayo displayed a typical Nigerian father
with such parenting skills. He expected much from his wife in terms of cooking
African food and expected the children to take part in house chores and he
maintained his grounds.
On the other hand, Bamidele took on the
character perfectly in the accent of a typical Nigerian boy, he looked the age
and played the part excellently. Put in other words, he demonstrated and
brought to light the character of a very naive boy so full of respect.
The character of Nikki played by Marie Gomez was also fantastic it show cased a typical teenager who believed she was old enough to make her own decisions, talking back at her father and her father basically unable to control her. Kudos also to Jazzi Fizzle {her father), typical Nigerian dominating father. Her character is a direct contradiction to that of Bamidele.
in my view think Ayos wife (Monica) was a bit unnatural especially when she was crying about Bamidele with Nicole her friend. However I give her credit as the movie continued, she gets better in further scenes and plays her role properly.
By and large, there
was a mix of characters and I believe that overall justice was done to the
storyline. I was really flabbergasted to say the least by Kevwe, I don’t quite
seeing anyone else playing that role. I see Kevwe as an upcoming Nollywood
star. If he keeps focus, he might even star in Hollywood someday.
I was impressed
overall by the cast in this movie and I do not hesitate to give for this
category 9 out of a possible 10 points.
Overall performance: The concept of this movie has a great and I would like to give a kudos to Toyin and her team for that. However, the movie was all over the place a point. I was impressed by way each character were brought to life, however I was disappointed by the movie ended. I realise that there were cuts in the movie ass I had seen the trailer, but I believe some parts that were edited out could have been left and other parts cut out.
I was also expecting to see more of the movie
revolving around Bamidele's family how his Ayo’s in-law warmed up to him at the
end, or even having one of the friends of his sibling having a crush on
him or making friends both at home and school. I would also have liked to
see Bamidele exceling in school. It would have been great to see Monica cooking
African food and as a result Ayo openly breaking up with Bunmi. Also, we should
have seen a conclusion to the accusation brought against the teacher about
having an affair with a student. I am guessing we would see some of these in
the series coming up, but as it has been premiered as a movie, there should be
some form of conclusions.
For overall effort I would award this movie a 3 star out o a possible 5+ star for this movie. As stated the concept is great but what I saw were different clips of sitcom episodes pieced together to form a movie.
Watch the trailer:
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