Nollywood movie. Called, of all things, Beyonce, The President’s Daughter.
They are serious. This is not a comedy.
This chick…
Is called Beyonce.
And she is the daughter of the president of Nigeria.
You already know how bad this movie is going to be.
Nah. You just think you know. You have no idea.
It is worse. Look. Opening scene:
Buff Nigerian dude walking through neighbourhood that looks a lot like the Bucket’s street from Keeping Up Appearances.
There is a drive-by shooting.
“Rata-tata-tat-atat-oh.”
A generic Toyota salon car rolls up. There is a racket of gunshots, then the Toyota speeds off, leaving buff Nigerian on the ground, lying in a pool of his own ketchup.
Luckily there is a hot Nigerian chick loitering. She sees his predicament and, having nothing better to do (turns out she is unemployed. Or at least, shows no sign of having a job anywhere in the movie) she walks over and asks him what ‘appuned.
Buff Shooting Victim is too shot up to speak, so we don’t hear his sarcastic response. I guess he means to say something like, “Nothing much, just chilling here dying. And how is your day?” but all he can manage is a cough and sputter.
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking the chick turns out to be the president’s daughter, Beyonce. Nah-uh.
Actually the chick turns out to be Ciara.
Really. Her name is Ciara in the movie.
Beyonce,
And Ciara.
Ciara loiters off to where the special hires are and fetches a cab to takes the boy to the hospital. We find out that his name is Raj and, thankfully, not Usher, and not Ne-yo.
At the hospital, they lay his bleeding form down in a pleasant waiting room.
You want to know why this is the case: are there no emergency wards in Nigeria?
The reason why is that the nurse won’t allow a gunshot victim into the real hospital without a police report that authorises the saving of his life. She explains this to Ciara, who immediately runs to the police station to get a report.
Ciara really ought to consider buying a mobile phone, don’t you think?
The police station looks like the reception of a tourist hotel, and that is why the cops are polite. And useless. They politely tell her that she has to go back, fetch the victim and bring him with her to the police reception before they can consider making a report.
To recap. Bleeding gunshot victim stranded in hospital waiting room. Nurses won’t even give him an elastoplast until the police have signed a piece of paper. Woman goes to the police to say she has witnessed a shooting. Police don’t even get up off their asses. All they do is say, “Really? Okay, you go and bring the victim here to us.”
By now it is evident that this film was written by men and women afflicted by a deeply profound and vigorously rapacious form of stupidity.
Indeed, I would have stopped watching, except that I hadn’t seen Beyonce yet.
Raj recovers fully and next time we see him, he is telling his sisters about the mystery woman who saved his life.
His baby sister asks, “Was she wearing a mask and a cape?”
“No,” says Rajj, with that where-was-this-one-when-the-rest-of-us-were-getting-our-basic-intelligence-genes look.
“Oh, cos If she was wearing a mask and a cape, I could have told you who she was. Batgirl wears a mask and a cape…”
She doesn’t finish because Raj sets his pit bulls on her. Again.
Okay, That isn’t what happened, but I wish. That was just in my head. I couldn’t actually hear what they were saying. But we could gather that he wanted to see Ciara again. And eventually he did. Bumped into her in a club, told her he is the dude she saved and that he loved her. He is fast as a bullet, this one.
No pun intended.
And now the moment you have all not even caring to wait for. Time for Beyonce’s scene!
Cut to lavish mansion. Presidential palace apparently. Bootilicious chicks with lots of jewelery on, wearing little skirts, wobbling their heads around talking about “grrrrl!” and “grrrllfreeen!”. In the midst of all this, the light skinned one, who turns out to be Beyonce, The titular President’s Daughter, announces that she just got a seat in parliament.
Fortunately, that was the last time parliament was mentioned. Some would call that an unresolved plot thread, but the rest of us know better. We call it relief.
I now hand over to Evil Twin:
Kenyanchick: I’m trying to picture it. Chicks in small skirts, shaking their bums to “I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly.” Then one of them stops and says, “Oh shit, I forgot to tell you: I’m going to Parliament.” (Shades of Legally Blond: all the booty shakers yell, “Let’s all go!”). Nollywood is extremely surreal…
I think that was what the movie was supposed to be up to that point, then they decided to lose the Legally Blonde bit and just go Cuandos Seas Mias instead, so they dumped the parliament storyline and cut to Beyonce is in a supermarket being followed around by a bodyguard with an earring and a thyroid problem. Rajji is in the same supermarket.
The inevitable occurs.
Kenyanchick: Baz, this is a Nollywood movie. What is “the inevitable?” Being Nollywood, she could turn into a witch.
KC is right. Okay, the following occurs. She meets Raj and falls for his sweetsmoking hot caramel ass.
She really doesn’t have time to waste being a smooth operator—she is too busy being the fucking president’s daughter, what about, so she picks him up the way you are supposed to pick things up in a supermarket.
She says, “You are very handsom. I think you should call me.”
Can’t believe you are still reading this…
Cos by now we had long chucked the movie. We only looked up now and then cos the girls wanted to check out Raj.
Beyonce was trying to steal Raj from Ciara, of course and there was a sweet scene when she smashed a flower pot over Ciara’s head.
See that happening in real life? Next day it will be on all the headlines. “President’s Badass Daughter Brains Proletariat Chick With Homongous Flowerpot.”
But in this movie the president had disappeared completely. Along with parliament.
And that is when I realised how brilliant the filmmakers were: The filmmakers were cunningly trying to make a statement! They feel that the nation of Nigeria is falling into anarchy! They are lamenting the absence of government where it is needed! Gasp.
I wanted to know if the ketchup would ruin Ciara’s hair, but it was explained that it was a weave. No worries.
Mr E. Bazanye 