#TeamJabber “Nairobi Half Life” Review

This past weekend, on the 1st of September, 2012 which happened to be a Saturday, #TeamJabber went for the screening of Nairobi Half Life.  What can we say? It was quite the top notch production and lifts the bar quite high when you compare it to most of the local fanfare on our local channels 😉  Speaking of which, here’s a brief review of Nairobi Half Life.

BRIEF REVIEW

Official Synopsis

“A young aspiring actor from upcountry Kenya dreams of becoming an accomplished actor one day, and in pursuit of this and the chagrin of his brother and parents, he makes his way to Nairobi the city of opportunity. He quickly understands why Nairobi is nicknamed Nairrobery as he is robbed of all his money and belongings and left alone in a city where he doesn’t know a soul.
Luck or the lack of it brings him face to face with the city’s criminals and forms a friendship with a small time crook who takes him in. He is quickly drawn into a world of crime as he struggles to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.
Keeping the two worlds separate proves to be a challenge for him as he trudges on in this unknown world called Nairobi.”- Nairobi Half Life

The Good

The production quality, acting and casting take center stage here.  The exaggerated theater acting quite common on our local TV shows (especially when the language spoken is English 😉 ) and also quite different from cinematic acting, is not here at all. Yes, rejoice!  We could put that down to good talent and directing.  The cinematography, camera shots are a step-up on the creativity scale, some times it pays to be unpredictable.  The best factor infused into the whole production was the language chosen; from Kikuyu to Kiswahili, to Sheng to English, it gave the authentic feel a Kenyan would want to experience when watching a production that attempts to strike at the heart of a certain aspect of life here in Kenya.  It was all very engaging, riveting and the fact that (as one of #TeamJabber member put it) there were no dramatic shifts in character simply because of a geographical transition, made it more engaging.

Certain scenes were just beyond words. Case in point the ‘Nairobbery’ scene as we called it, the scene where certain ‘wastes’ have to be mopped up and the climatic shoot-out towards the end… engaging and well done.  The story is engaging, so is the main character; the writers did a good job of anchoring him and ensuring that whoever and whatever had to do with him in the film, bounced off him well, complimenting each other.  Solid acting upon solid writing did their part for the lead. What would a film be without a strong lead in writing and acting?  The other supporting acts were also well cast, and were equally well written and brought out.

The Bad

No production is perfect even The Dark Knight Rises wasn’t perfect 😉 BUT both are worth their salt in their respective genres.  The main points we picked out that we felt that as much as they didn’t bog down the production, they are factors to look out for in future, are pacing and continuity.  Starting with pacing;  The story starts off well, set’s the ground in introducing our character, abilities, dream and the future pitfalls that Nairobi offers, especially for someone from ‘shagz’ i.e. the village.  It picks on well after that, but at some point we feel the pacing slacks off a bit with some scenes that we felt weren’t really necessary given the fact that no relevance was added to the story and there was no continuation regarding them. Case in point, the disco scene in Westlands, what relevance did it add later on? The two characters never hung out again beyond that, apart from their rehearsal scenes.  The disco scene gave a hint of a more than ‘formal’ relationship developing, but we never see the two anywhere else together apart from the rehearsals. Unless we missed it? If we did feel free to correct us 🙂

The same disco scene can be used to argue the factor or point of continuity, what were the consequences of that night out? What happened to the parents we saw earlier?  How much money were they really making from their car-jacking ‘ventures’?  We understood their motivation was money, but how much were they making and how did it impact their lives to further motivate them? We saw no clear continued evidence of a pleasant life-change with enough motivation to keep them at it.  Sure we saw the montage, but no hint of results; improved social-life, better clothes, better accommodation etc that keep criminals doing what they do. Yes we saw the percentage of cash given to the main man who taught them the trade, but we never saw actually how much the crew was getting and how it motivated them. Again, feel free to correct if we missed out on it 😉

Conclusion

In short, it’s worth the ticket price and the trip to the cinema. If you are yet to watch it, please, honestly and sincerely do!

Rating

7/10

Thank you to all the #TeamJabber peeps who turned up to support this local production! Click on a picture for the gallery to open:

Keep your eyes open for more #TeamJabber Experiences and join us too!