DISCONNECT: THE WEDDING PLANNER

WHY NETFLIX’S “DISCONNECT:THE WEDDING PLANNER” IS A VERY TERRIBLE ATTEMPT AT CULTURE FUSION.

If this is what can come out of the Nigerian-Kenyan movie industry partnership; please, we don’t want to see another production. Boy, that was some boring 1h 46m watch, and as a big Netflix fan, I request Netflix returns my 1hr 46m, I come in peace.

The Nollywood-Riverwood movie is a Netflix production, and stars some Nigerian actors with a host of Kenyan actors

“Disconnect: The Wedding Planner” begins with a scam. First, a love scam which we realise after the “what are we?” question. “I thought we were keeping things casual. You help me, I help you,” is the response. The ‘story’ progresses to a wedding planner scam, and a wedding has to happen. Otis (Pascal Tokodi) eavesdrops on a conversation his friend, Dele (Tope Tedela), is having with his wife-to-be, Rita (Meg Otanwa), about their wedding and suggests a destination traditional wedding at a resort in Kenya.

At this time, Otis is having a conversation with Dele about the latter investing in his company, and the invitation was for him to converse with Dele and seal the deal physically. However, the wedding conversation overwhelms that, and Otis gets to work but is hornswoggled too easily.  He runs to his friends to help him prepare for the wedding, and your mouth may be left aghast at the ‘Yoruba traditional wedding’ that Gitonga made us watch.

In between the wedding preparations, we are inundated in the chaos that characterizes relationships these days – sex, supposedly spiced by love and relationship

The first major turn-off of this production would have to be the shallow plot; the writer in a poor attempt tries to fill us in on the phliandering character of the main cast, Otis with the first scene; Otis is seen eating alone at the restaurant in a manner that seems too insensitive to the way he initially welcomed and loved-up on the side-chick; not also ignoring the way we are left to know Otis is married with a child in a very fluid manner.

Secondly, the scene that follows shows Otis eavesdropping through a phone call on a conversation between Dele and his wife to be, why that isn’t strange, what becomes strange is how Otis is able to be heard through the phone by both Dele and Rita without the phone being on loudspeaker. Mr Director, please don’t insult our intelligence

I really haven’t watched many Kenyan movies, but if the acting from the Kenyan actors is what I’m to expect of Kenyan movies, then I might probably not want to see another. The conversations lacked depth and intensity, and to be honest, it wasn’t until the Nigerian actors came into the scene when they arrived Kenya that we began to see some drama, and even the drama couldn’t be complemented by the Kenyan counterparts; this is definitely not a jab towards the Kenyan actors, reality should just be stated.

Not intending to keep giving an array of flaws, but we definitely cannot overlook the wedding party itself, the “Yoruba wedding”  feeling was lacking, I don’t feel Tony Tedela was the best character considering that scene.

Notable Kenyan cast in this are Pascal Tokodi, Brenda Warimu, Nafisa Moiz and a few others while Tope Tedela, Meg Otanwa, Wale Ojo and a few Nollywood actors feature as well.

Well, Wale Ojo did bring us moments of laughter in-between, and for that we are grateful for.

We appreciate the move to fuse both different cultural varieties, but this could have been done better.

Star Performer-Nil

STREAM IT/ SKIP IT?

Well, from us at RealNollywood, we’d say perhaps when you’ve seen every other movie you can think of, you can then probably consider streaming this.