A LONG NIGHT

Uche Jombo Production

Rating 1/10

Reviewed by Vivian Nappier

“A Long Night” reminds me of those stories we shared back in elementary school. The type that goes like “Once upon a time, a woman spent 12 minutes of movie time on the phone with her friend about gel manicure that her boyfriend paid for, and then thieves broke into her house and held her family captive because they wanted the money she took from the bank earlier. She informed them that she had the wrong code and will go to receive the money in the morning so the thieves decided to spend the night with them. The next morning she collects the money and gives them but the bank manager is suspicious so she calls the police. The police appears in front of their car and arrest them, they confess that it was the lady’s cousin that gave them the info so they arrest him too after he confesses. The End.”

Sadly, that is truly the story and whole movie. I was really disappointed with this one big time. The first 12 minutes of the movie was spent with Anita (played by Uche Jombo) having a phone conversation with her girlfriend about the gel manicure she had that was paid for, by her boyfriend. Van Vicker plays the gang leader, who had a bad leg and a thing for E-Cig (Electronic Cigarette). He was also not a fan of guns. Although he tried really hard to channel his character, I couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

There was no story structure, nor plot and the acting was a bit mediocre. I had a really hard time trying to feel any sort of sympathy for the characters as everyone looked super comfortable in their hostage and thieves roles… In fact, for a minute, I thought it was some kind of big joke on us, the viewers.

The movie had good sound and production quality. The editing was either horrible or they forgot to shoot one of the major part to the movie; the real pursuit and set up to the thieves captivity.

I am still trying to understand why they magically thought it was okay to waste over 1 hour on phone conversations and over night chitty chat with the thieves but yet not spend as much time, constructing a good set up to show how the thieves were traced and captured? It literally went from Anita in the car with the thieves, driving her back home after collecting the money, to the bank manager calling the DPO to discuss with him and then magically, police appearing in front of the moving vehicle with guns AND it is now all the thieves in the car driving away….. Really? So we are to assume that they drove home with Anita, counted the money, said it was a pleasure doing business with you all, I hope he gets his injury sorted, bye! And they all got in their car and drove off? How did the bank manager know the exact car the thieves would be driving? How did she know their location? How did the police know their identity?

Considering how short the story was but yet managed to make it pass 1 hour and 30 minutes of movie time, there isn’t much to elaborate on except it was a very long night for me to get through the movie and it was definitely one of the worst movies to come out of Uche Jombo productions.