Blood Vessel

The first 15 minutes of the film and the last 10 minutes are quite spectacular. The middle part? Absolutely shocking. It felt like two directors were involved in this story, and even worse, Netflix meddling with the vision of the original director.

Acting is good, set up is great, and the plot is interesting. A home land ruined by oil and a young couple with forbidden love, ruined by a corny villain and slow as nails boat plot which has many holes.

The antagonist is so one dimensional, a 4th grader would've written it. A shame.

Skip the middle of the movie and you'll have a good short film with the start and finish.

With a brilliant storyline, the movie encompasses issues bothering on illegal migration, the adverse effect of oil and gas environmental pollution on host communities, ship arrest and traditional beliefs.

Appreciable also is the use of ijaw language (not the regular Igbo/Yoruba/Hausa). With a beautiful cinematography, the introduction of new actors is applaudable.

However, in this love story, there's little attention to details. Although the movie is classified as a thriller, it's major strength is in emotions rather than action. Quite a number of scenes are predictable thus the drama becomes belaboured. Horrible soundtrack by the way.

Blood Vessel is Moses Inwang's best work👏 It surpassed his previous films as the execution was refined in every department

DELICIOUS

-Finally, we get to see a story that is not Igbo, Yoruba, or Hausa! We got to hear what the Ijaw language sounds like, who the people are, and the challenges they face

-Performance was outstanding across all actors, including David Ezekiel, Adaobi Dibor and the foreign actors

-Moses Inwang had a different directing approach this time. He was intentional about the messages he wanted to convey. Hence, every frame, blocking of actors, and camera focus were calculated.

The movie was told in an unpredictable way which kept the momentum going. Additionally, the sound quality was crisp and the photography captivating

-The core of the story was to highlight that we are all related by blood, regardless of which ethnicity or country you come from in Africa. Thus, the double meaning of "Blood Vessel"

-The score and sound effects worked well to create a suspenseful and scary atmosphere, loved the Gregorian chant👍

BLAND

-There was no parallel story! This obviously made the film a bit redundant. However, this may have been done intentionally so we could feel trapped with the characters in this vessel🤔

-The love story of Abbey and Oyin was a clear glorification of promiscuity which defied our African values. She didn't have to show her bra in front of the camera and we didn't have to see how their lust was elevated to the extent of disrespecting parents😖

-It would have been more realistic to show how the 6 guys struggled being trapped in that vessel, where did they go when they wanted to ease themselves? Even though, we saw a bucket but how come it was not full or even closed to prevent the smell from coming out?

Overall, work well done!