MOVIE REVIEW: Dissecting RED TV’s ‘Unintentional’ feature film debut

Movie:  Unintentional

Director: Olufemi Bamigbetan

Script: Zeina Otonjo

Released: 2021

RED TV is best known for its web series such as “’The Mens Club” and “Our Best Friends Wedding”. However, last Christmas they decided to release a full length feature film. Unintentional is the story of Sefi Madaki (Omowunmi Dada) who seems to be the absolute unluckiest in love. She leaves Lagos for her National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Imo State after her boyfriend (Ladi-Tobi Bakare) proposes to another woman in front of her. On the journey over, she and her friend, Rosie (Beverly Osu), run into transportation troubles when the bus they are taking has engine problems in the middle of the road. The duo is saved by the easy-to-love Uzor (Efa Iwara) who happens to be travelling on the same road. As their journey with Uzor goes on, Uzor’s car later runs into its own mechanical issues, but that just gives him more time to fall for the female lead – Sefi.

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After spending a night together, Uzor is certain that he has found his wife, but some miscommunication afterwards leaves Sefi to believe that Uzor is just like all the other men. She deletes his number, proceeds with her NYSC and continues hating men, while Uzor is in a corner of Eastern Nigeria wondering what happened to their love.

Unintentional is not a bad movie, but it is a thoroughly upsetting movie. It is upsetting because there is so much potential that is untapped here. The writer has a great idea, but the budget, time or skill do not allow it to be properly flesh out. One of the most prevailing annoyances about this movie is the horrendous audio quality. If I say that it was hard to decipher what the characters were saying in most parts of the movie, it would not be much of an exaggeration. It is quite a wonder how a movie is able to pull off these beautiful visuals, afford these celebrity cameos, yet they cannot manage to figure out how to make a microphone work.

The next annoyance is with the writing. In the beginning, it feels like the writer is determined to immerse the audience in every part of the film from the Eastern soil to the air, the characters breathe and everything in between. You sense this especially with the way the exposition starts off. There’s the introduction to Uzor and his family and then the little details with his brother cleaning his car and then over to the bus with Rosie and Sefi and the palm wine visuals then panning in on the bus passengers vehemently complaining about the frequent stops. With excitement comes hope but as the movie progresses that hope is dashed because the writing and story do not maintain the same energy. By the time we get to the end of the movie, people are making friends that are just thrown into the scene, people are promising gists at locations that are never mentioned, characters are essentially referring to future and past events that were never shown and thereby ruining the flow of the movie. And it is not just the undelivered scenes that are disappointing; it is the loss of the flow. The progression of the storyline after the trip to Owerri becomes haphazard and choppy and it loses the charm and pulls that came with the story that carried you along. So, the audience is left to just sit and wait for the inevitable happily ever after we all know to expect.

With a film like this, the love story would have transcended from just okay to beyond memorable if this same energy was maintained. The film already had a lot of things working for it such as the performances. From Efa to Omowunmi and Beverly, the main leads manage to keep you enthralled. Efa adds his personal charm to the romance of Uzor and almost makes it impossible for you to not root for his love. Omowunmi is quickly becoming as seasoned as it gets in flowing into a character. The real surprise here is Beverly Osu as Rosie. It is honestly hard to take your eyes off Beverly in the scenes in which she’s involved (even when the two protagonists are in the same frame). The camera loves Beverly in this film and this is not just a testament to her beauty. She works the scenes as though the camera isn’t there and is effortless in almost all of them. It almost makes me want to see what she’s like as the main character.

Having said all this, Unintentional really is not a bad film. It’s just one with a lot more prospects than that which it finally settles for.

 Cast: Efa Iwara, OmowumI Dada, Beverly Osu, Kate Henshaw, Chioma Okoli, Tina Mba, Frank Donga, Micheal Uchegbu