In recent weekends my wife and I have been getting our fix (or should I say ‘flix’) by way of series and movie binging. Thanks to Netflix we have more affordable variety compared to Cable TV; currently useful for only reporting new Covid cases and Khloe Kardashian’s latest meltdown. We’ve so far binged on Ozark, Prison Break and now we’re on Breaking Bad Season 4 (no spoilers in the comment section please). When it comes to movies though we sometimes want to give Nigerian talent a chance. On one of such occasions we decided to watch a Nigerian movie titled ‘The Set Up’. This movie sucked more than a 6-month old baby from a bulimic mother.
Before watching a movie my wife and I do this thing. Everybody has a ‘thing’ like watching movies with subtitles. But our thing is to watch the first ten minutes and resist pressing the Exit button – once that time has lapsed then it’s more than likely that we would watch the rest of the movie. Sadly this movie did not make the cut after the eighth minute and here’s why.
To begin with the movie opened with three baseless flashbacks back to back spanning from the pre-teen, teenage to adolescent years of the two female childhood friends the story is based on. Fast forward to present day and you can perceive they live a criminal life once law enforcement agents storm their apartment. Just before they scram they get a visit from a recruiter who is need of their skills. All this while I contemplated wedging matchsticks under my eyelids to stay awake. The dialogue was the stuff of bedtime stories; yawn-worthy.
There were rushed scenes of the girls getting trained and executing scores with zero dialogue. I was disappointed at the missed opportunity for character development. I was not attached to a single character and couldn’t care less if any or all of them fell into an abyss. I wasn’t glued or caring to know where this story was going. I was contemplating my existence and wondering when last I called my parents.
Hopefully others who watched it got some entertainment. However, my wife and I have seen better Nigerian movies so this movie lived up to its title – we felt set up.
TCN rating – 2/10
