Winner of AT&Tβs Untold Stories program, which supports underrepresented filmmakers, βNigerian Princeβ provides a mildly enjoyable looking into an interesting world rarely explored by film.
Directed by Faraday Okoro, βNigerian Princeβ follows two stories, that of Eze (Antonio J. Bell), an American teenager sent by his mother to Nigeria in order to get in touch with his cultural roots, and that of his cousin, Pius (Chinaza Uche), an internet scammer desperately trying to pay off a corrupt police chief.
The shadowy world of deceit and corruption fascinates no matter the context, and βNigerian Princeβ provides a unique backdrop to a timeless storyβLagos, where the film was shot. Sprinkled with vibrant settings, elaborate scams, and tense moments, βNigerian Princeβ should be a hit, right?
Well, itβs certainly no scam. The film is good, after all, but not good, just generally good in a forgettable sort of way. While itβs impressive that they finished the project in fewer than twelve months, it shows. Important relationships go underdeveloped. Plot threads, like Ezeβs enrollment in a Nigerian school, are dropped entirely. In fact, the film, ostensibly about Eze, pushes him to the side in favor of Pius.
Though the latter is doubtless the more interesting of the two due to his role in the scamming underworld, he receives undue attention; Eze is the character with the internal conflict, the one who needs to make a decisionβwill he do whatever it takes to get home? Pius, on the other hand, is purely reactionary, his moral dubiousness neither questioned by himself nor the audience.
βNigerian Princeβ ultimately offers a snapshot into the reality behind junk-mail scams on the other side of the screen. With an interesting premise, solid performances, and a talented filmmaker at the helm, it just doesnβt transcend the sum of its parts.
‘Nigerian Prince’ held its world premiere at the Tribeca Film FestivalΒ
Photo courtesy of IMDB
