One Nigerian thriller action film that had people screaming at the top of their lungs was the movie titled, Rattlesnake: The Ahanna Story also known as The Armadas. One reason why it was a buzz was that it is an official remake of the 1995 Nigerian classic film also titled, Rattlesnake as directed by Amaka Igwe. Rattlesnake: The Ahanna Story was directed this time by Ramsey Nouah and it starred Nollywood stars such as Osas Ighodalo, Ramsey Nouah, Chiwetalu Agu, Stan Nze, Bucci Franklin, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, Ayo Makun (AY), Efe Iwara, Norbert Young, and others.
The film focuses on Ahanna (Stan Nze) who decides to resort to armed robbery as his means of livelihood. So he gathers a group of men called The Armadas. Each of them possesses different skills and they put them into use for every operation. But things take a different turn when they steal from the wrong person and they become the hunted. They are not prepared for the roller coaster of events that takes place as love also gets into the mix.
This movie is like the Nigerian version of the American series titled Money Heist, only that this is a low-budget, money-heist movie. Now coming to the bedrock where every character gets its sense of direction, the storyline; the storyline understands the graph of storytelling which is to have a beginning, middle, and end. The storyline makes sense but when it comes to execution, we are lost. The characters in this movie did not really carry the storyline to the height at which it deserved. For the lead character, Ahanna, he actually didn’t have to be nicknamed Snake for us to understand that he is the brain behind The Armadas. Secondly, he just didn’t deliver because at no point was there a very brilliant plan or way of escape. In fact, looking at the character of Ahanna, it lacked that depth you need a badass lead character to have, that switch, that ability to foreshadow things and be ten steps ahead of the game.
Please what was Omotola Jalade Ekeinde doing in this movie, her part was so irrelevant, the acting fake and forced and just not on point. Coming to the lead female character, Amaka (Osas Ighodalo), sincerely a Nancy Isime or a Damilola Adegbite could have done a better job and was more suited for this role. Osas just didn’t start or finish it for us, and what was with the accent, it was an Igbo family for God’s sake. Once again, I am still trying to understand what Ramsey Nouah was doing in this movie, except they are trying to link, Living In Bondage and this movie together at some point. Again, come on, who gave Norbert Young the character of Ali Mahmood, he just didn’t kill it for us, the character was so flat and not it at all. The only character that ignited an emotion in us was Nzenozo (Bucci Franklin). He literarily ate up his character head to toe and played it to the hilt, thumbs up all the way. One fact is evident, this film didn’t have a casting director.
In this film, I just kept saying what is happening, the makeup was not it at all, who was making Osas Ighodalo up, like! Who did the special effect make up for Bucci Franklin, the list goes on and on. Then again how can Smoke just escape like at the scene where he was shot like that, like, just like that; why do Nigerian keep acting movies like we are still in the 1990s. There were just several lapses here and there that leave the audience wondering, what is happening here. The ending was the last straw, I won’t say more than that.
One high point of this movie was the location, the setting was good enough but the heist part of this movie was way way below expectation. Like when will Nollywood start thinking out of the box! Final Thoughts
Was Rattlesnake: The Ahanna Story a fantastic movie, no. But was it a good movie, yes. Seeing all the effort put into it, one can tell that the film had a direction and a general picture it is trying to paint. Overall, we would give it a 5/10, but we say weldone. Watch the trailer here;
