Money Miss Road: Bold narrative dwindled by poor execution

From Obi Emelonye, the director of Badamasi, Last Flight to Abuja and The Mirror Boy and a host of other films, comes another cinema movie titled Money Miss Road.

The plot: A man — Joseph ( Jide Achufusi), due to an error, is granted the opportunity of a lifetime when he finds a huge sum of money that belongs to a wanted criminal; Diokpa (Charly Boy).

He and his friend; Josiah (Josh2funny) must avoid being dealt with by the bike-riding gangsters. Their encounter with this man is a reflection of their struggles, dreams and existence, they must find all means to not sink into their sea of unprecedented happiness.

The movie’s cast members include Charly Boy, Josh2Funny, Jide Kene Achufusi, Oma Iyasara, Melvin Oduah, and Anthony Monjaro.

Shot in locations in Lagos and Abuja, the movie is a partnership between Blue Pictures Entertainment and The Nollywood Factory, with Odinaka Emmanuel Offia as the Executive Producer.

Being a reboot of a movie by the same director made in his earlier years, the thought of the recent massacres happening to our remakes is what permeated my thinking as I walked into the cinema to see it.

But I tried to shake off the fear, clearing all forms of biases that could affect my perception wrongly. I made excuses: this one could be a different story, this is a different production house and director, maybe, maybe, maybe…

With lights out and the movie starting, I was ready for whatever was set to come. The first set of scenes confirmed my fears — something was off. Terribly off. — The jokes!

The director in his note had made bold promises and in his own words "if you liked films like Rush Hour and Bad Boys then, you'll love Money Miss Road" but, I daresay that was a comment based on forced ambition.

The movie is nowhere near the comical excellence of the template movies and any attempt to make a comparative analysis of the films would result in the total annihilation of one.

The movie picks up slowly. One would expect it to climax, but it never does. The play goes on, and on, on the same level from beginning to the end maybe because comedy is perhaps one of the most difficult genres of drama to write or direct.

The multilateral structure of the genre is a chore, and anyone who will write or direct it has to prepare for the worst.

Money Miss Road has an extremely good vision, but yet again, fails to keep us spellbound through to the third act with the lack of contextual spectacle.

The ending was very abrupt, as it felt as though it was born out of a pressing urge to end the film and get the project over with, with its lack of coherence. The fault of the director, perhaps.

The comedy didn't sail home at all. Josh2Funny though a very good Instagram comedian didn't particularly excel in this one. Only managing to pull off a cacophony of chuckles.

The jokes were dry! At first, I wanted to badly pin the flaw on the writing but in the long run, I knew it was going to be unfair, the writing was good and sublime but the performance and by extension, the execution was thwarting.

The acting most of the time was plastic, and the background soundtrack failed to align with the happenings on screen and created a distraction than a union between them.

There are a lot of questions about realism, but we can suspend logic when watching a film like this as it doesn't apply.

Money Miss Road is not packed with enough thrilling experience to pass for an action thriller, nor is it packed with enough humorous elements to pass for a comedy making the entire outing incomplete.

However, the film serves a very palatable visual meal with the costumes, cinematography, decor, and the choice of locations and that is the film's greatest win.

The narrative it intends to display is bold and fresh, but ideas alone don't sell a movie, execution does — and this is where Money Miss Road fails.