If you watched the new Netflix Nigerian crime drama #shantytown and you enjoyed it, then let’s applaud another fine Nigerian production: cinematography and the art direction was excellent. The production team really put out some great work with the compositions and shots.
Now if you didn’t enjoy the show like some did, then you’re in great company. The best part about Shanty Town is the prologue; that opening seen of the attack at the village is brilliant work. The setup, the explosions, the sweeping shots of the mayhem, it was nothing short of epic.
Everything else after that scene is just reels upon reels of scenes lifted directly from other western shows and movies.
You blink and you think you’re watching, Scarface, The Godfather, Queen of the South, Power and so many other crime thrillers that’d blazed superior paths.
There’s nothing wrong with doing something that’s been done before, but there’s something to be said for a little originality; you ought to have something in there that should be yours exclusively.
The characters are so pasted on (not bad all the time though) and derivative, you know you’re merely watching the Nigerian Version of Tommy from Power and Tony Montana from Scarface. It feels like a pastiche performance.
I have one major bone to pick with how so-called ‘bad guys’ are portrayed here in African cinema and why we should stop putting that false narrative out there: bad guys don’t walk about stiff with contorted faces, acting like they could punch holes through walls, and they definitely don’t growl in menacing tones like they chew broken glass for breakfast.
A good villainous role should be mercurial, totally unpredictable. It should that character you’d pass and ignore on the street at first glance because of how ordinary and non-threatening they look. That is the depiction of power, cos that’s how the real-world works. It’s the most normal looking people that’ll shake you to the core of your bones, not a frazzled looking guy with a braided beard already telegraphing their cruel intentions before they open their mouth.
Same rule should apply to our women of action as well. The least said about their wooden macho gangster acting, the better.
Shanty Town should be the litmus test for the evolution of African cinema where the growth of our production values syncs with superior stories and characters that can rival what the West is putting out.
Author-Yao Mawutor Fianu
