HOTEL LABAMBA

Directed by Biodun Stephen, this 2023 comedy drama titled “Hotel Labamba” mostly shot in a hotel features some Nollywood A-listers amongst others in a whodunit manner.

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PLOT SUMMARY

Big Berry (Adedimeji Lateef) & his girlfriend, Ella (Lilian Afegbai), are lodged in Hotel Labamba, where other guests are also present.

Some require peace & quiet while others just want to party. Hence, it’s hard to find a balance. Things are going as per a mixture of groove, music and all till there’s a dèad body in one of the rooms.

Who’s died? How did they die? Who’s responsible for this? You might want to watch the movie for yourself and follow Inspector Zizzy (Bimbo Ademoye) & her assistant Yema (Blessing Obasi-Nze) as they unravel this murder mystery as “everyone is a suspect”

MY THOUGHTS

The runtime of 1hour 36minutes is pretty impressive. The acting from all the actors was good as everyone delivered what they were given.

My best performances are:

1. Lateef as Big Berry: he was just dishing his lines like “I just don’t care” kind of thing.

2. Blessing Obasi-Nze as Yema: I don’t even know if she was the inspector in charge of the case or if it was Zizy (Bimbo).

Wait a second! What’s with that her accent??? It was both interesting and frustrating to understand her. Which tribe, state, or country speaks like that? Please somebody help me.

Bimbo, Etinosa & Bolaji equally ate their roles, too.

Although this appeared to have started in a rather confusing manner where it seemed a lot was going on at once, by the time the dead body surfaced, the movie sort of found its rhythm in my opinion.

While the makeup, location, costuming, camera quality/angle, script, and casting were really good, continuity feels like it could do with a little bit of attention to detail.

The transition from the start of the movie to when the dėad body was discovered happened in such a way that got me rewinding my device to see if I missed a thing. Yes, for me, there seems to have been a disconnect in that area.

The use of flashbacks nonetheless did some tricks to somewhat bridge the gap and answer some questions already building up, but this could easily be distracting for some.

To be honest, at first, it was tough solving who the culprit was on my own after eliminating all murder motives. I had my ultimate suspect, but the writer had other plans as the culprit turned out to be one that was glaring. This then became underwhelming cause I was expecting a major plot twist, which never happened.

Another head scratcher is in the early part of the investigation when there was a lockdown in the hotel. Zizy gave clear instructions “…no one goes in or comes out!” How then did that last guest get booked in? How did he get past the police officers at the entrance?

Overall, though there were other little inconsistencies here and there, however this was hilarious, interesting, intriguing, engaging and with sprinkles of lessons to draw from such as “be careful how you vouch for people cause they may disappoint you in a flash” also for ladies to be mindful where they go and who they mingle with. Anyhoo, kudos to the cast and crew. They did great!

Thanks for stopping by.
SOKA 🖤