Wedding Party Review

Story by Mo Abudu, Tosin Otudeko, Kemi Adetiba & One other person I can't remember
Screenplay by Tosin Otudeko and Kemi Adetiba
Box office: N200,000,000 and counting (In 16 days)
Budget: N60,000,000


Strongest Feature: Effortlessly hilarious, great picture quality, fantastic acting, appropriate sound tracks and sound.

Screenplay review: Almost flawless, whatever flaw it has has been swamped by the humor and great acting. I even had to shed a little tear at some point... yeah it got me. Interestingly the story is pretty much about forgiveness than it is about a wedding party. If it were a core christian movie, I'm sure the title would have been coined, 'forgiveness'.

The opening hook was fantastic. We started and ended with the zealous wedding planner. The epiphany Dozie's mum had while at gun point was subtly created without verbalizing it... That's another definition of awesome.

So, this is how the scorecard stands...

A story structure has the beginning, middle and end.

1st act/The beginning/set up must haves:	Wedding Party
Begin with a memorable image/hook	Present
1.       Find the catalyst/motivation e.g information about the situation, where are we? What’s going on here? Or something or an event to start the story. It could be a gun shot, an explosion or a letter arrives.	Absent
1.       Raise the central question	Absent
2.       Establish the conflict.	Present
3.       Establish the antagonist.	Present
4.       Ends with the 1st turning point. It is a twist and turn that changes the story’s direction as new event unfold and new decisions are made.	Present
The 2nd act/middle/development must haves: 1.       Begins with the 1st turning point.	Present
2.       Momentum (a cause and effect/action and reaction scenes)/Action points/dramatic event that causes a reaction.	Present
3.       Barriers stop the action for a moment, and then the character goes around it and continues.	Present
4.       Complication is an action point that doesn’t pay off immediately but we wait for it and anticipate the inevitable response. And it gets in the way of the character’s intention.	Present
5.       Reversals change the direction of the story 180 degrees/ moving it from positive to negative.	Present
6.       Puts the central character in jeopardy.	Present
The 3rd act/resolution/end must haves:
1.       Begins with the 2nd turning point and speeds up the action here, makes it intense, and gives a sense of urgency like a ticking clock.	Present
2.       The big finish/climax/ The question is answered/not answered.	Present
3.       Resolution.	Present

The only missing plot are the inciting incidence and central question. I wonder why that plot was omitted. It's something one scene could fix but a lame man wouldn't know any plot was missing. It was too much fun.

I love wedding party for many reasons; top of which is that the film vindicated me. Most people I have been in conversations with, tend to believe global best practice for screenplay is for the West... the oyinbos, that it doesn't apply to us, Nigerians. I have always argued without proof that the Nigerian audience is not averse to the classical 3-act structure for screenplay.

And there you have it, wedding party is trumping at the box office, beating 30days in Atlanta, Jenifa and other erstwhile box office hits with skewed storyteller style.

My Verdict

Kemi and Tosin are discharged and acquitted for 'slaying' the screenplay and given a
copy each of Linder Seger's 'making a good script great' 

It's her Day Review

Story by Bovi Ugboma
Screenplay by Bovi Ugboma
Box Office: Unknown

Strongest feature of the piece is the good picture quality, great acting and sprinkle of humor.

I unfortunately entered the cinema hall late for this one so I missed out on the first crucial minutes of the film, probably ten minutes or so. So, I met the film at the stage where Bovi and his girlfriend were planning this fairy tale wedding.

Bovi's fiance is so vain, it will leave a sour taste in your mouth (but there are people like that). 
Still on the script, the story doesn't have any apparent antagonist. Bovi's motivation was not strong enough and the rich girlfriend's persona is unbelievable... talk about unbelievable character. Why do I say that? 

She is the rich daughter of a very rich man (of  Otedola's status) but she is a leech on Bovi who is not one tenth as rich as her dad. And so is her mother that is so keen on draining Bovi's purse. I mean, this people are so rich and yet they don't want to spend their money on their daughter's wedding but prefer to task salary-earning Bovi for the wedding expenses.

I believe Bovi wanted the story to be hilarious but I find what should somewhat be funny, troubling. Like for instance I can't understand why rich girls from a wealthy man would be dragging Bovi by his tie, literally compelling him to buy them things from a luxury shop. I could be wrong but I felt they could afford it. It is just unbelievable for me. 

Because the story doesn't have a motivation per-se for Bovi, neither does it have an antagonist, nor does it contain story plot points must-haves like inciting incidence, 1st turning points, etc, (global best practice) coupled with characters that are not authentic it comes short of the screenplay test and therefore finds Bovi GUILTY of screenplay massacre.

My Verdict

Bovi is hereby sentenced to 11 months to behind 'write better villa'

30 days in Atlanta film Review

Story by Looking Suave

Screenplay by Patrick ‘Coinage’ Nnmani

₦137,200,000 (domestic gross)

Running time: 108 minutes

Strongest feature: One of the good things about the film is the picture quality, good acting and humor. So let’s get to other essentials of a great story. Since Screenplay is my forte, I will analyze the story and leave technical scrutiny to those who knows best. 

A story structure must haves.(Global best practices)

1st act/The beginning/set up must haves:	30 days in Atlanta
Begin with a memorable image.	Absent
Find the catalyst/motivation/Inciting Incidence e.g information about the situation, where are we? What’s going on here? Or something or an event to start the story. It could be a gun shot, an explosion or a letter arrives.	Present
Raise the central question	Absent
Establish the conflict.	Absent
Establish the antagonist.	Absent
Ends with the 1st turning point. It is a twist and turn that changes the story’s direction as new event unfold and new decisions are made.	Present
The 2nd act/middle/development must haves:	30 days in Atlanta
Begins with the 1st turning point.	Present
Momentum (a cause and effect/action and reaction scenes)/Action points/dramatic event that causes a reaction.	Absent
Barriers stop the action for a moment, and then the character goes around it and continues.	Absent
Complication is an action point that doesn’t pay off immediately but we wait for it and anticipate the inevitable response. And it gets in the way of the character’s intention.	Present mildly
Reversals change the direction of the story 180 degrees/ moving it from positive to negative.	Absent
Puts the central character in jeopardy.	Present mildly
The 3rd act/resolution/end must haves:	30 days in Atlanta
Begins with the 2nd turning point and speeds up the action here, makes it intense, and gives a sense of urgency like a ticking clock.	Absent
The big finish/climax   The question is answered	Absent
Resolution	Present

 Verdict 

Patrick ‘Coinage’ Nnmani is found guilty of  error of plot deficiency
 and hereby sentenced to 'write better villa' for 9 months without parole 

It doesn’t really have the classical 3 act structure that we are taught in film school. It is a 108 minutes film and at the 6^th minute we got our inciting incidence, which is a good thing. A little conflict was established also at the 6^th minute via the break up issue with Richard’s girlfriend, ESE.

By the 16^th minute, we got our 1^st Turning point. The story is about Akpors and Richard and at this stage, all we know is that they want to travel to Atlanta because they got a free visa/ticket. No major conflict in the 1^st act. By the way, 16^th -19^th minute was used to establish 1^st turning point (which is way too much time to establish a plot point).

Since we entered 2^nd act at the 19^th minute, we began following Richard and Akpors in different series of events of culture shocks for Akpors then at the 35^th minute, Richard spotted a girl, Kimberly who he wanted badly and it was until the 48^th minute that Richard begins to timidly approach his love interest, Kimberly. At the 54^th minute, Akpors gets a job offer he didn’t apply for and which he isn’t supposed to do because he has a visiting visa. 

Akpors also develop love interest towards an older woman at the 60^th minute. Pretty much we started seeing serious conflict at the 80^th minute ( which is too late) with Ese lying to Kim that she is Richard’s wife and Akpors getting into trouble with the police and later having a misunderstanding with his woman. By the 105^th minute, we entered the 2^nd turning point and the resolution, reunion with the estranged love interest of both men takes place and the happy ending of a Romantic- Comedy occurred.

Now, here is the catch, the story doesn’t have major plot points expected of a screenplay as tabulated above. It is mostly a chronicle of the times of the two friends in Atlanta but hey people loved it. At least the cash register reflected it.

This is a movie you watch, sitting like this... but that's what we want right? 

Happy, relaxed and entertained. This is a movie you can watch and still keep up with social media chats while at it. It doesn’t keep you at the edge of the sit at all but gives you a good laugh nonetheless in some scenes. 

The film broke some of the rules in a screenplay textbook but who cares, people loved it and the Producer made money. If you are a sucker for great storytelling then you might not like the film much but if you are big fan of humor, AY, Ramsey Noah, RMD and good picture quality, then this is for you. It is no longer in the cinemas but you can buy a CD copy.

Nigerian film Reviews

Happy new year.

It's been awhile that I wrote something on my blog because motherhood took the better part of my time but now that the children are becoming independent, I can have my life back and start doing some of the things I love.

There are so many film review blogs, and writers already, so why do I want to join the train? Well, I guess I figured, I can do something different. The honest truth is there is nothing new under the sun but we can always spot the difference.

Since my core competence is screenplay, my film review will pretty much center around the story/script. I will leave out the technical analysis to those who knows best. So my reviews will probably look more academic than entertaining. But I promise not to bore you with it.

So watch out for the next post.