As at August 2022, about 52,000 out of 74,000 inmates in Nigerian prisoners are waiting many years to be served justice; only 3 out of every 10 people languishing in Nigerian prisons have been convicted. What is more pathetic is the circumstances surrounding how some found themselves behind bars and the agonizing situation of spending years in Nigeria’s shanty prisons. If anything is worse than slave trade, it is the black man’s most populous nation’s snare of despair denominated as justice system.

Lanre Olorunnishola was caught in the trap of Nigeria’s unjust system, wrongfully incarcerated and served the sour taste of a dehumanizing prison experience. Unlike the lot of 90% of such victims, he was fortunate enough to get a chance at life after spending 11 days. He goes on to write a book about his experience (called ‘Prison Notes’) and a friend who’s a veteran TV production guru, Chuks Enete partnered to wax the story for the silver screen as his own debut solo film project.

‘Inside Life’ produced by Siloth Studios and distributed by Silverbird Film Distribution is an adaption of Lanre’s story and laudable spotlight on worthy indignation towards Nigeria’s judiciary. The movie by AIT and Iroko TV-famed filmmaker, Chuks Enete was premiered at the Silverbird Galleria on the 8th of September and released to cinemas across Nigeria on the following day. The film is co-written by the story’s protagonist, Lanre Olorunnishola, and Chuks Enete, directed by Tope Adebayo Salami, edited by Dipo Teniola. The movie casted Wole Ojo, Broda Shaggi, Nnedu of Wazobia FM, Romeo WJ, Tina Mba, Koloman, Belinda Effah, Saka, Ropo Ewenla, and Okey Uzoeshi. Others include MC Benkash, Chukwuka Jude, Jerry Okpan, Jay Hemkay, Zara Udofia Ejoh, Yinka Aiyelokun, Peter Oladeji, Funsho Adeolu, Enechukwu Uche, Ekiti Father and Eric Obinna, while Idowu Adedapo is Director of Photography.

Summary of the Story

A few days before his wedding, Larry (Wole Ojo) is assigned to represent his boss at a court hearing, a prolonged civil dispute with the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSTIF), over Chief’s (Larry’s MD played by Chuks Enete) headstrong refusal to pay his dues to the agency, premised on a rebellion against paying government while he bares the skyrocketing cost of running his business alone. The company’s lawyer (played by Okey Uzoeshi) does not show up and NSTIF’s lawyer (Tina Mba) got the magistrate to wrongfully remand Larry in prison as a lesson to the company for disregarding the court process.

Larry needs to fight for his release for his wedding to his sweetheart fiancée (Belinda Effah), but then, he must learn to survive the dire condition of the prison and come out alive regardless. Larry moves from being a dove in the raft of ducks to flirting with the pangs for survival. His initial ability to gain rare privileges with the prison officials earned him enmity with hitherto protective cell lords, but his ingenious charity to all cellmates soon got him affable attention much that the toughest of the lot (played by Broda Shagi) sort out his help, sharing with him even more distressing stories of his own wrongful imprisonment and total despair.

Analysis of the Plot Elements

The movie begins with an aloof brutal murder scene, blacks out, and transitions to a gothic scene of two lovers waking up to early morning curdle and reminiscence of their ‘bedmatic’ through the night. Within the first minute of the plot’s exposition, one can tell the dichotomous style of the plot.

The story slowly moves from the everyday life of young hardworking hopefuls and sharply turns to the details of life’s capriciousness. Maybe this makes a good reason for naming it Inside Life.

To us at Nollytrailers, we think the writers, perhaps riding on the power of epic storytelling, smartly unfolded the story’s main characters, hinting by dialogue and actions, their personalities, and quickly erupting emotive followership for the audience.

The rising actions were a steady climb towards the climax. Larry moves from being a fine eligible bachelor, high-profile staff of his company, who had just been gifted a huge sum as his MD’s support towards his forthcoming wedding, to a stunned witness in the box in a case he had no clue about, then to a benevolent but angry suspect who had to pay for his own transportation to prison, then to a star inmate who has privileged unrestricted access to the chief warder’s office, and then to a co-parker in the rigour and torture of life in a crowded prison cell, with perhaps no certainty of regaining his freedom anytime soon, since the judge on his case has suddenly collapsed and is incapacitated to hear his case on the next adjournment.

The climax came quite full-stack, comically captured by Dele’s (the president of the prison cell) initial wisdom to Larry, “When jungle don mature, okoro go know where him de”. Larry suffers the same fate as other inmates; external visits stopped and privileges vanished as usual contacts either got transferred or put out of reach by other wardens whom he had earlier spoken to arrogantly when he first got there.

The falling actions go on a sublime decent into the closure, but wisely picturing the story’s theme of the importance of faith and the eventual embrace of the miracle-working potency of praying and believing when all other things fail. Larry’s atheist position soon gets transformed once he recognised that only a miracle can get him off the hooks.

From believing to reforming, Larry’s travail captured all the important steps that leads towards the resolution of the story’s critical matter and a restoration to status quo.

There’s a part of the movie that is brilliantly left for the interpretation of the audience, which leaves an intuitive open end – Larry, while in jail, had a dream that his fiancée was celebrating with the company’s lawyer the success of their evil plan to have him reprimanded by trapping him with the lawyer’s absence from court. The dream meant that his most beloved and trusted human was the mastermind of his tribulations.

The writers never gave a material concession to the substance of this dream and as such left it to the imagination of the audience.

Analysis of Creative Elements
Script/Story

If there is anything that stands out with this movie, it is the powerful story it tells. The writers did an incredible job of interpreting Lanre Oluwanishola’s true life story by setting the entire project mainly on the prison experience. Just that would have likely been a bore to the comedy-loving Nigerian audience, but smartly, the script was spiced up with apt comic relieves.

For instance, there’s a scene where Larry was tearing and condemning religion with the assertion that organized religion was a big scam. He shortly realized painfully a little later that his seemly short imprisonment may become elongated. He turns to Dele to wail, complaining also about the rice that was served the prisoners and asking why not yam instead. The cell’s ‘presido’ hits back at his lack of regard for the power of prayers with sarcasm, “The yam you need to chop now na I am than I am”.

The dialogues are brilliant, funny and well laced with wisdom – able to instruct heavily on the irony of a supposedly blessed nation and the agony of its people. Unlike a lot of works that feature an array of comedy skit makers, this did justice to the effort at sprinkling light-hearted-moments without having unnecessary overtures.

Broda Shagi had a brilliant display of street jokes and ‘agberoism’ that is a prefect reflection of the life in a Nigerian prison. Dele was such a perfect character of a hard but wise cell lord, dropping doses of ghetto wisdom – profound in its depth, but crude and funny in its tone. One noteworthy excerpt is his stump reaction to Larry’s denial of reality, where he encouraged him to eat what was served in prison. In response to Larry’s insistence that he had no appetite, Dele goes “Designer prisoner. You no get appetite ba, no worry jungle go soon mature and you go know say last last Mandela chop Apartheid”.

Quite a rib-cracking joke but also an en explosive dialogue that connects the realities of the unjust justice system of Apartheid South Africa to that of present day Nigeria. It also delves into the projection of the fate of the character who seem too headstrong to embrace the present and will be well on the way to spending a long time in prison if he does not explore the power for miracles.

Casting and Characterization

Most of the actors were in character, though a few would have done better. Chief (The MD) played by the executive producer himself, Chuks Enete, beyond the apt ‘Ogene’ sounds that accentuated his scenes, was short of perfect in roleplaying. There was an obvious effort to fit into the personality of a crude wealthy Igbo businessman. This easily give up the mystery that ought to come with interpreting the role and therefore is below the current industry standard.

Belinda Effah was also not at her best. Her interpretation of a devastated fiancée visiting her partner in jail was short of believability. She acted and sounded like a starter in a drama rehearsal. Watching her, the character’s pain could not be felt, her confusion was not obvious and expected exasperation towards the company was totally silent.

Wole Ojo delivered Larry’s character to the fullest. Every step of the way, there was no emotion, personality or nuances of the character that was not communicated; Larry’s ego was depicted in and off the mic and the personality transformations were well captured in his acting. Kudos!

Brother Shaggi and Nedu did justice to the characters of leading the ‘Ikoyi vs Agege’ strata of the prison; personalities, checked! Dialogue, checked! Actions and reactions, checked!

The casting is also quite good. Love the minor roles of the big names like Tina Mba and Funsho Adeolu. The cast, safe for a few snags, by frame and personality fused perfectly into the plot of the story and delivered quite well its themes.

Directing

Directing is but an okay job for this movie. There are obvious issues with the sets, costumes and transitions that ought not to have skipped the calls of Dipo Teniola and Tope Adebayo.

For instance the costume is totally unbelievable! Here are prisoners who have stayed an average of 2 years in jail, all having stylish clean shaves. The dialogue at the chief warden’s office hinted that Larry was going into a 35-man cell, the shots were set in a less than 15-man prison, almost scanty.

Cinematography

Dipo Adedapo may have given his best to this but there are certainly no wow moments from the filming of this movie. It is nothing more than basic shots.

There were efforts to add some creativity through camera techniques but that also fell flat – the filming at a tilted angle combined with shaky panning just didn’t work quite well.

The lighting at the main set also could have been better. In fact, it presented the cinematographer an opportunity to display creativity, given that over 70% of the movie was shot on that set. Nigerian prisons are often quite dark, poorly ventilated with walls riddled with amateurish graffiti. Dapo could have ridden on this to explore tricks like off-subject shots in silhouette or playing creatively with exposure, extra lighting for focus matter or even sunrays-drop background for early morning dialogues, etc.

Music/Sound Design

Tosin Amire, the young FUTA graduate of Applied Mathematics turned sound designer, did a great job on the sound design for this film. The sound in some scenes helped to enliven the poor performance of some acts, like that of Chief (The ‘igbotic’ MD). Though the sound production quality could have been better, but the large-scale original compositions were good and aptly distributed across the movie’s scenes.

The overall production quality is average. This is owing to the less emphasis placed on Directing and Cinematography. This would have easily been a 4 star movie.
Inside Life is easily a high-recommendation movie chiefly because of its powerful story, theme and overall message to the nation. It is also a good pick for a couple’s date night (would have been great for a family was it not for the few scenes of gunshots). You will be sure to really get cracked up seeing this movie.
Hit the cinemas to see for yourselves, better with company though, you don’t want to deal with laughing and falling on a stranger’s shoulders if you are alone. You might just receive sneer or slap. In the words of Broda Shagi in the film, “Who de microwave liver for you?”

Inside Life Review

3.1 Reviewer

0 Users (0 votes)

Theme5

Screenwriting5

Visual Design3

Cinematography2

Editing3

Sound and Music2

Acting3

Directing2

What people say... Leave your rating

Sort by: Most recent Top score Most helpful Worst score

Be the first to leave a review.

Verified

{{{ review.rating_title }}}

{{{review.rating_comment | nl2br}}}

Show more

{{ pageNumber+1 }}

Leave your rating

Your browser does not support images upload. Please choose a modern one

• Theme
• Screenwriting
• Visual Design
• Cinematography
• Editing
• Sound and Music
• Acting
• Directing