Full disclosure: We streamed this film in our house during Covid, so the viewing experience was different more like watching with occasional commentary than if it was in a movie theater.

The good: I generally liked the film. I found it entertaining and interesting enough to keep my attention. While watching, you could tell that it was made on a budget, but they did a good job with the film. The plot kept us interest by leaving us guessing what the characters are doing and why they were doing it. The movie was not super fast paced but there were tense moments (including violence) and things were sufficiently broken up that it did not have long dragging segments.

The bad: If I had one complaint, it would be the setup. The history of why the protagonist is sent to Nigeria is left very vague and affected the evaluation of the movie. An ancillary question to the plot is why anybody would think sending the protagonist to Nigeria was good idea? This question is so pervasive that it made it tough to suspend disbelief and tough to relate to the protagonist. Our group's speculative assessments of this issue ranged from 1. he is a young adult who, like most kids, is stuck with his parents' decisions because he is too young to legally make his own decisions, to 2. he is an evil (or amoral) thug who is on the run from his dark past. This speculation had a large impact on whether each viewer was able to identify with, and be interested in, the protagonist and what happened to him, ultimately determining how much each liked the movie. I was closer to the first group, so liked the movie more than others that watched with me.

The actors are all very good, and the script was decent, but there's definitely some plot holes. Budget issue are probably to blame. Overall this film did a lot with a little.

The bond between Eze and Pius is cute. I think Pius did care about Eze, but Pius was in a really bad spot, and this appeared to be his only option. Also, I wanted to hug Pius after he was whipped at the police station. I know he's a scammer, but that wasn't a proper punishment for what he was doing. It's not like he killed someone.

I don't agree with Eze's family at all. You can't just ship your kid back to your home country because they misbehave. You have to be a real parent. Eze's Mom appeared to have a good job, so she had some extra cash to spend on her son. Put him in something creative or into sports. The whole thing was questionable though. I wonder if Eze's Mom was in on the scam with Grace. Pius would be her family member too.

Also, there's definitely a theme about boys needing a Dad to steer them in the right direction. Pius' Dad died when he was very young, and now he's a scam artist. His Mom probably needed the money as well, but things got out of hand. Eze's Dad probably didn't act like a real Dad. He's a cab driver, so he ended up being less successful than the Mom. That probably made him feel incompetent, and would have affected how he was as a man. He clearly just caved to what Eze's Mom wanted to do, so he probably caved to all of his sons demands too. He was there, but was just a guy, not a Dad.

Also, I'm a woman, so I really want to point this out. Eze has to sleep in the same bed as Grace. If the genders were swapped people would be up in arms over that.

I still recommend this movie. I'm American and I've never left the country so I have no idea how well it represents Nigeria, but the movie is fun to watch.

The two main actors are American, and they're very good, so I hope I get to see them in more stuff together.

This is a very interesting premise and what happened to Eze has probably happened to other first-generation Nigerian-Americans.My only bugbear about this was...

SPOILER ALERT

An economy flight from Nigeria to East Coast US is - at a google - around $1,000 MAX. I hated the fact that he chose to set Wallace up instead of just explaining the situation. It's plausible that Wallace would have agreed to loan him the money.

All in all, a decent flick. Didn't like the above or the ending, though.