An ill-fated flight provides the setting for this suspenseful multi-character pot-boiler filled with romance, blackmail, and murder in Obi Emelonye’s Nollywood box-office smash.
Nollywood’s ultra low-budget, stylized action, and pulpy stories, have seen a prolific audience cultivated by DVDs sold on Nigerian streets. While local audiences delight in these films, few attain a level of quality that enables a wider audience. By amassing larger budgets and crafting deeper storylines, a new wave of filmmakers (including Abuja director and screenwriter, Obi Emelonye) aim to bring Nollywood cinema to international attention. Emelonye has developed his second feature with an eye toward current Nigerian events within the airline industry. Opening in the midst of the titular flight’s technical problems, the script plays liberally with the film’s timeline by slowly unveiling the stories that brought these passengers to this ill-fated flight. Suspense is created through the interactions of a hot shot pilot, a spurned lover, a football star, an executive committee from a Lagos business, and a suspected murderer. A box office smash in Nigeria, Last Flight to Abuja marks Emelonye as a rising star of contemporary African cinema.
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