Orah: Nigerian Canadian Revenge Thriller Tantalizes but Doesn’t Satisfy

By Chris Knight

Rating: B+

Orah is an odd hybrid, a story of immigration and the way it can fracture families, and also a straight-up revenge thriller with cops and bad guys and guns. The two gears don’t always mesh perfectly, but it’s a wonder they work nearly as well as they do.

Oyin Oladejo (Star Trek: Discovery) stars as Orah, who left her native Nigeria in 2005 when she was 15, after — as she cleverly puts it — pulling out a homemade shotgun and breaking the fifth commandment. Seventeen years later finds her working as a taxi driver in Toronto, but also moving money around for a shady operator who promises he can get the papers for her son to join her in Canada.

Alas, the trip from Lagos to Toronto involves some additional smuggling duties, and when Orah’s son balks, he is summarily murdered by one of the criminals. When Orah finds out, she calmly decides that the only thing for it is revenge. After all, she’s done this kind of thing before.

Nigerian Canadian writer-director Lonzo Nzekwe says the thriller half of his movie was inspired by real life, after his brother was killed by a stray bullet in Nigeria in 2016. In the film, Orah lucks into an easy path to retribution when she learns that Bami Hazar (Lucky Ejim), the man calling the shots, is living in Toronto but is wanted by the Nigerian police.

One overseas phone call and they immediately send two officers to arrest Bami and bring him back to Nigeria for interrogation. Who knew the wheels of justice could turn so quickly?

Oladejo is a fine actor, and I was sometimes in awe of what she was able to signal with just the slightest facial twitch. But not everyone else in the film is on par with her talent, which means that sometimes the script is required to do more heavy lifting than is healthy.

Also, there’s a twist late in the story having to do with someone’s parentage, and while it’s surprising, it doesn’t land with the gravitas the film clearly desires.

Orah is solid, competent and (up to a point) compelling, without quite crossing into a territory of brilliance. Press coverage of the film when it screened at the Toronto International Film Festival last September suggested that Nzekwe has spent time on the fringes of the Canadian film scene, trying to secure funding. He hasn’t made a movie since 2016, and that one was a 37-minute short.

So, here’s hoping Orah works as a stepping stone and that his next project comes together more quickly. He’s clearly a talented director with things to say, even if this outing wasn’t the strongest.

Orah. Directed by Lonzo Nzekwe. Starring Oyin Oladejo, Lucky Ejim, and Oris Erhuero. In theatres February 9 at Cineplex locations in the Greater Toronto Area.