This reviewer first learned about The Black Book in 2021; about Editi Effiong having a movie about a former ‘law enforcement’ man coming out of retirement in a revenge ‘mission’. Two years on, some bits of that earlier synopsis were quite incorrect, but one of the main intrigue of this film, on a personal note, was – aside seeing a Nigerian movie about a man on one side of the law being on the opposite side – was seeing Richard Mofe-Damijo play dead-eyed vengeful dad; as someone who associates him as more of bright-eyed divorced dad (yes, this is about Fine Wine in 2021).
Directed by Effiong, The Black Book stars RMD alongside Ade Laoye, Sam Dede, Shaffy Bello Usifo Omiagbo, Ireti Doyle, Bimbo Akintola, and a few others:
The Good
One word; RMD. The Black Book is a movie that has Mofe-Damijo in his element, all his acting element. He’s as dead-eyed as he’s a softie; as much a neighbourhood preacher as he’s a ruthless battler. Part father figure, part-survivor; such is his acting that he takes all the characteristics and makes sure they complement, not contradict, each other. If he’s meant to play a smiley rich veteran at this stage of his career, he definitely didn’t get the memo in The Black Book. At times, it felt like this movie wasn’t just Paul Edima (RMD’s character) coming back for one last grand job (for better or worse), but also Richard Mofe-Damijo hugging the bulk of the screen once more.
And the concept of ruthless battler is one this movie has for itself. There’s a decent reflection of the harshness of a world where the rich and powerful do only things that interest the rich and powerful, and everything else – even their agents and lackeys they made deals – are afterthoughts, only to come into consideration after the fact, if they come into consideration at all. And that reflection is made in the one of the most heart-stomping ways; at times it almost feels cruel to the viewers in itself.
The Bad
The Black Book tries… in the sense that this movie wants to make a commentary about the roots of social ills, the rot that’s deep within society and the structure created to facilitate and uphold it. But, whether by limited understanding or limited explanation, it doesn’t quite get it. Don’t get your political education from Netflix, but it’s quite a thing to reflect the rot of society, especially in ‘law enforcement’, then pretty much have the message of ‘good eggs will fix it’ rooted in somewhere. Case in point is when the matter of taking out The General is raised by Big Daddy, and Paul’s response is ‘if you take him out, someone else will just take over’, establishing an understanding of systemic rot, and yet this movie’s end is pretty much Paul going ‘take out The General and his cronies since he betrayed some part of the army, that’s the solution’. Then there’s that speech by The General himself in the end, where he talks about the façade of liberal ‘democracy’, which is not just another contradiction, but is also watered down as it comes after a third act that’s pretty much reduced itself into a metaphorical good guy vs bad guy knife fight, and just about veered away from our main character’s seemingly central goal.
Which leads us to this; the (pardon what’s coming) John Wickification of this movie. The Black Book plays a lot of the hits in this regard; he’s bogeyman, he has a rap sheet to make the devil awe, he got out of the game and is still the most respected in it. This movie sometimes takes RMD being central to its plot, and suddenly turns it into the plot is simply just about RMD. A movie that starts off from different angles; journalistic integrity and dedication, institutional corruption and a socio-political tussle; all those acts play second fiddle or worse, fade away, when we get to the mid-point of the movie.
Then it dons the cloak of the Hollywood action cliches of daunting killers and head shots; even the plan to discredit Paul and make him public target number one, falls on its face after one scene. The Black Book had so much it started off with but threw a lot by the wayside; perhaps it’s a runtime issue, or perhaps its about giving screen time to its leading character; but this movie takes more than decent sub-plots, and retrospectively makes them into little more than fuel for our main character to get on his badass action shtick. In many ways, The Black Book makes a good story into a deficient one by barely using the tools it had to work with.
The Ugly
Side note: If you’re powerful enough to have the Deputy Commissioner in law enforcement work for you, maybe you wouldn’t send your kid to partake in an abduction job in broad daylight.
Conclusion:
The Black Book isn’t bad, not by a long shot. From some good acting, to some iron-eyed intensity, this is a movie you don’t mind watching. But this is ultimately a good movie that becomes a passingly okay one by not trying to be great.
Rating: 6.5/10.
Comments