“Orah” is a stellar Canadian-Nigerian co-production where Nigerian corruption meets Canadian-Nigerian raw justice.
Orah (Oyin Oladejo), a 15-year-old Nigerian, starts off the film by blasting vengeance style an older man sitting in a Lagos barber’s chair with a home-made shotgun. Considering who her victim was poetic justice is dished up in Lagos, Nigeria.
Teenage Orah is lured to Toronto, Canada by “an uncle” promising a career in fashion. Instead she is served up as fodder for a Russian mobster running a sex cartel. Orah is used as a mule to deposit criminal cash into her Canadian bank account. Upon fleeing Nigeria she abandoned her newborn son Lucky with her mother. The Canadian launderers offer to reunite Lucky with his mother in Toronto if he agrees to transport a suitcase full of dirty cash into Toronto from Lagos. Lucky learns at the last-minute drugs are to be transported not cash so he gets cold feet and the “big boss” and his “tribal woman” conspire to give Lucky cement shoes to clad his cold feet.
The “big boss” Hami Bazar (Lucky Ejim) launders money for corrupt Nigerian politicians. Through Orah’s digging she rightly determines Hami is responsible for the murder of Lucky. The Financial Crimes Recovery Agency of Nigeria (FCRA) strikes a deal with Orah that if she agrees to testify against Hami in Nigeria, Hami will spend the rest of his days in a Nigerian prison. If Hami is arrested the FCRA offers a $300,000 reward.
Hami is kidnapped from Toronto to Lagos, Nigeria by FCRA agents and through FCRA torture of his son Tariq spills the beans detailing all his assets so he is destined, by the deal between the FCRA and Orah, to spend the rest of his years in prison. But don’t you find it odd Orah receives her reward money from the FCRA in cash? Perhaps it is the money laundering training I have received which tags this as highly suspicious. The FCRA fails, not surprisingly, to deliver on its promise to imprison Hami.
As the movie started it ends with poetic justice but is it really justice when Orah muses that any eye for an eye is never enough.
A taught and gritty thriller professionally produced and directed deserving of international exposure. Oyin Oladejo delivers a brilliant performance supported by the brutal and bulky Ejim. Just watch Oladejo’s final scene and you may agree this lady is destined for further starring roles. Nigerian footage and music inject realism. There are some gaps and weak points in the screenplay.
Food for thought. Poetic justice may not always be legal justice! Orah is a soiled protagonist?
An exploration of Nigerian corruption, money laundering, family values and justice. The grit and realism permeating the film makes it a winner. Currently playing in Canadian theatres.
A film by Lonzo Nzekwe.
RKS 2024 Film Rating 93/100.
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