The movie The devil in Freetown
premiered at the Odeon Cinema on Friday 25th July 2014.
Amongst those that attended included HE Edward Mohammed Turay High Commissioner of Sierra Leone to the UK and Ireland, cast and crew of the movie from Sierra Leone. Others who graced the red carpet included members of the press, members of the business community, the Sierra Leone community in the UK and distinguished members of the public. Of course members of the Nollywood UK community including Theodora Ibekwe Oyebade and her husband Ayo, Nelson Spyk, Toyin Moore, Ruke Amata, Toksy B, Tolu Yesufu, Riyike Alayande, Danny Erskine, Rita Nzelu Okoro and of course Collins Archie Pearce.
Also present were representatives of
sponsors including Melgosh Mission International. At the end of the movie
Collins Archie Pearce announced that he was championing an Ebola Fund for the amputees from the
war and that 30% of the proceeds from the premiere will go towards Melqosh
Mission International's projects including the procurement of preventative
materials against the Ebola plague. We at babso.org would like to commend him
for this initiative and ask others to inject proceeds from future premieres
into developmental issues in the community that they may deem relevant.
Storyline:
The ethos of this movie is to showcase the
resilience of Sierra Leone and her people in rising up from the ashes of the
war despite the human, structural and societal destruction it experienced. The
date, January 6th 1999, will be forever etched in the
minds of Sierra Leoneans as the bloodiest day of the war. This movie brought to
light inhumane activities which took place in what had once been one of
Africa’s most peaceful country and to also highlighted the need to strive
for continuous and prevailing unity in any given country, be it in
Africa, Europe, America, Australia. The movie
revealed exactly what transpired during the war and d a beautiful story line to
complement it. According to Collins Archie Pearce, some of the people who were
affected by the war volunteered to feature in the movie to give first-hand
information of the trauma they went through.
The main message behind this movie is to
illustrate to friends and neighbours of Sierra Leone that the peace of one’s
country or native land must be maintained and preserved. Unfortunately,
the effects of the war are still prevalent in the lives of many, the victims of
the Blood Diamond fuelled war – the war afflicted amputees.
In my
view and as a reviewer and critic, the storyline is relevant and was well
depicted to the effect that, I could not really seat and watch things that
happen in war. The same people from your own country, probably people whom you
ate and drank with now take up arms, loot places, kill innocent civilians, rape
women and just for no reason cut off people’s hands making them handicapped.
Some of us have not seen real war and are priviledged to enjoy life in a
country like the UK where things work and there is peace. Watching the movie
brought tears to my eyes especially as I understand that though the war has
been over, the effects of war still prevail in Freetown. On this category of
storyline, I cannot fault the storyline. I thought it was long and could have
been cut short, but none the less I would give a maximum of 10 for the storyline.
Sound:
At
the beginning of the movie when a narrator was trying to introduce the events
that had taken place in Freetown, his voice was overshadowed by the music that
was being played. I think there could have been a better balance of the sound
especially in external scenes. In most part of the movie, I could hear what the
cast were saying which is important in a movie. For this category, not much to say
and I would award a 7.5 for sound
out of a possible 10
Picture
Quality:
In
some of the scenes, the picture quality was a bit shaky. The Cinematography
especially when bombs were released or when a hand grenade was fired was poor.
The final effect of what we saw as a burning house or the effects of the bombs in
those scenes were not real. Also as in most African movies, the way gun shots
are depicted were not real. The use of an experienced cinematographer would
have made those scenes more realistic. The general picture quality of the film
was otherwise good. In the light of the above and hoping to see issues like
this addressed in future movies, I would award 5.5 out of a possible 10 for
picture quality.
Cast:
As
stated earlier and I would like to re-iterate this, I commend all those who
have been victims of war that came out to tell the story. However, although
this is commendable, I am a reviewer and critic and I need to say things as I
saw them. I believe that the cast tried to tell the story in the best way they
could. However, I think in some cases, there was over-acting and this could
have been checked by the Director. For this category, I would award a 7 out of a possible 10.
Overall
performance:
All
in all, this was a good movie and another god effort from the people of Sierra
Leone. However, a few gaps need to be filled and I see the Sollywood industry
going in the right direction. There was a scene when a female soldier was
called by her Commanding Officer to report. Although this was a phone call, it
seemed as if the people were just talking next door, did not seem in reality
like a phone call.
As
usual, I have tried to be objective in my review because I want the next movie
to be better than the previous one. There were also some spelling mistakes in
the subtitles and these could have been corrected during editing. We have been
going on at babso.org for a while now and we are now at the stage where we have
given enough room for improvement and now wield a strong stick in reviewing our
movies. I would like to congratulate the entire cast and crew for this movie
and award it a 4 star out of a
possible 5+ stars.
The
question that is left for me to answer is if I would recommend this movie and
my answer is that in spite of the flaws mentioned, I would recommend the movie.
Watch
the trailer:
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