Barrio sin ley

Shanty town helps to offer an insight into the lives of the corrupt, with a plot that gives it a strong base. Filled with impeccable acting and nerve wracking moments. Shanty Town is a must see. It starts off fiery but is perfectly paced, as the show goes on you see that.

Each character has a reason for doing what they do and their personal goals and vendetta all collide. Episode one gives us a teaser of what is to come and the further episodes help to build on that in as much as the gore or nude scenes may not be too everyone's liking it is certainly a key component of the show as it helps us understand the world of Shanty Town.

There are some key issues that prevent this series from accomplishing its goals and here they are broken down:

1, Action sequences They are baaad. One move somehow is chopped into 4 different cuts with outrageously bad sound effects. This would be find on its own but in the opening salvo there are literal anti-tank mines going off all over the place seemingly for no reason!

2, The premise It suffers from horrible character development and a lack of agency from any of the supposed leads. Instead of having one or two characters drive the story, you have a mess of underdeveloped would be protagonists all pulling in different directions. By the end you're as confused as you were when the E1 started.

3, Effects The sound doesn't work, if anything it irritates you and pulls you out of whatever engagement you're able to cultivate - but it pales in comparison to the mediocre visual effects. I will concede this is a Nollywood film so you're not exactly expecting much but even by those standards it manages to disappoint.

If you can get over those issues, which I had a hard time doing then you're in for literal torturous viewing.

First of, it has an exaggerated cast of an all inclusive all stars.

By the way, what in the name of acting did Peter Okoye do?? And why are there so many veteran actors??

Secondly, the storyline is beautiful as it reflects the typical lifestyle of current day polluted politicians whose ill-wealth is generated from sex workers, human trafficking, corruption, organized crimes, drugs and other illegal activities.

Applaudable also, is the use of ibibio language (finally the use of another language asides Igbo, Hausa or Yoruba).

However, for a six episode story, the movie lacked suspense and the ending??? It was rather shabby Anyways, by Nollywood standard, it may be a masterpiece.

This series opens with a fast and dark sequence of action scenes, giving a semblance of a promising start, but instead of building on this start, Shanty Town delves into a laden exposition that masks as the crux of the plot. This series never regains the thrill and urgency that the opening scene has.

Shanty Town is all about the male gaze, and is shameless in its portrayal. Female characters are degraded and objectified, and the excuse of it being a true attempt at showing the lives of sex workers is flimsy at best.

Shanty Town also employs gore and violence, but this isn't done to promote the plot, but is provided for shock factor. It's almost as if the creators decided to shoe in as much violence as they could fit in.

The plot of Shanty Town is a shabby patchwork of various stories and subplots that only help propel the runtime but not the story. Shanty Town trails to a very unsatisfactory end, with copious plotholes.

The only saving grace of Shanty Town is in its brilliant cast. Chidi Mokeme, Ini Edo, Nse Ikpe Etim, Richard Mofe Damijo, Nancy Isime, Shaffy Bello, and others try their best with the poorly developed story they were given to work with.

Shanty Town can best be described as a meal ruined by having too many cooks, the cooks in this instance are the towering subplots and themes that were incorporated.

Seeing that Shanty Town is a six-part series, one would have expected better character development and an ending that was worth it.

These and more were not gotten from the six-part series recently released to Netflix.

The series opens well, and I believed that I was in for a treat, but not really.

A combination of good makeup, mediocre sex scenes and ok vfx were this series selling points, because the story was riddled with plot holes.

Female extra characters are degraded and objectified, and the excuse of it being true to the story of the life of the average sex worker.

Chidi Mokeme was the stand out actor in this series, He brought his A-game and basically carried the series on his shoulders. The remainder of the main cast were giving what was expected. Peter Okoye's Yoruba accent... wow. He could have done with a trainer.

The plot of shanty town is shabby cacophony of stories that just lengthens the run time.

The ending was abrupt and totally unsatisfactory. For a six-part series.

The story could have used with a better ending but the producers had probably either run out of ideas or funding because the ending did nothing but add to already lingering bitter taste in our mouths.

In conclusion, the movie shanty town is a perfect example of having your heart in the right place but executing with the finesse of a toddler playing a piano.