On Sunday, September 6, I sat in the room for the premiere of the film everyone in Lagos has been talking about, 19 The Movie, and I left convinced this is one of the most important Nigerian films of the year.
19 The Movie follows Ndubuisi Madueke, a boy who takes on responsibility far too early because his father cannot provide for the family. That single burden pushes him into the world of “419”, Nigeria’s homegrown name for scamming, a term borrowed straight from a section of the criminal code. What starts as survival soon becomes something Ndubuisi can no longer walk back from, and that is the engine that drives this crime thriller from start to finish.
The film is directed by Tola Odunsi, who also wrote it, and produced by Bola Attah and Tola Odunsi, with backing from UBA’s Red TV. It carries a heavyweight cast, William Benson, Stan Nze, Bisola Aiyeola, Sola Sobowale, Deyemi Okanlawon, Charles Okafor, Enado Odunsi, Tayo Faniran and Adeoluwa Akintoba among others, and it hits cinemas on September 11, distributed by Nile Entertainment.
What this film gets right, it gets right with real weight. At its heart is a social message every young Nigerian needs to sit with, that a life built on crime burns fast and ends faster, that being “too fast to live is too young to die.” It is the kind of story that could genuinely change a mind or save a path, and I would go as far as encouraging the producers to seek an official endorsement from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. That kind of institutional backing would only add more weight to work this well made.
The casting deserves real praise too. Every actor sits in the role they were born to play, but the standout is how naturally Adeoluwa Akintoba, playing young Ndubuisi, hands the character over to Stan Nze as the older version. That transition is one of the hardest things to pull off in film, and here it is seamless.
The storytelling itself is confident from the opening frame. The film opens with Ndubuisi already caught, already facing extradition, narrating his own downfall in retrospect. It is a bold way to begin a story, and it sets the tone for everything that follows. Tola Odunsi, wearing both the director’s and writer’s cap, clearly did his homework on the world of cybercrime and scamming, and it shows in how grounded the film feels. As a piece of directing, the pacing holds steady throughout, the crime thriller beats land where they should, and the humour is measured in just enough to give the audience room to breathe.
No film is without its rough edges, and honesty matters as much as praise. The story opens in 1999, introducing us to young Ndubuisi and his family, but the era itself is never fully brought to life. There is little in the sets, the costumes or the mood that pulls you back into that specific time. One scene even shows the father reading a 1999 newspaper with Monday Okpebholo, Edo State’s current governor, visible on the back page. The image was blurred, but a sharp eye still catches it. In the same vein, the slang used doesn’t always match the period. The word “maga,” street language for a scam victim, was not yet in common use in 1999, and the scene where the syndicate celebrates a big hit by chanting “Maga Don Pay, Shout Halleluyah” borrows a phrase from a Kelly Handsome song that only came out in 2007, a full eight years after the film’s setting.
The campus scenes also feel like a missed opportunity. A quick shot down a walkway stands in for what could have been a properly filmed sequence at a real institution like UNILAG or Yabatech, and that would have added real production value.
None of this takes away from what the film achieves. Without giving too much away, this is a film worth seeing, and by the closing scene, the room was on its feet applauding a genuine piece of work. Go and see it when it lands in cinemas.
Rating: 8/10
My name is Seunmanuel Faleye.
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Seunmanuel Faleye is a brand and communications strategist. He is a covert writer and an overt creative head. He publishes Apple’s Bite International Magazine.
