A thrilling action movie titled “The Black Book” from Nigeria that chronicles police brutality and corruption in the continent’s most populous nation has attracted record numbers of viewers worldwide on Netflix, according to Bloomberg reports. It serves as a reminder of the strength and promise of Nigeria’s quickly expanding film sector.
With a high ranking of No. 3 in the second week, “The Black Book” spent three weeks among the top 10 English-language titles on the platform worldwide.
According to Netflix, it received 5.6 million views in the first 48 hours of its debut on September 22 and was among the top 10 films in 69 countries by the end of the second week.
“The Black Book,” the newest blockbuster in Nollywood, cost $1 million to produce and was financed by a group of leaders and innovators in Nigeria’s tech sector, which is also Effiong’s debut feature.
It chronicles Nigeria’s troubled past over a 40-year period, from the time when military administrations arbitrarily executed and imprisoned dissidents to the present, when police violence and abuse of authority are still pervasive.
In the first scene of the movie, corrupt police officers working for powerful politicians assist in the kidnapping of the family members of the head of the Nigerian Oil Regulating Agency.
In an effort to hide their actions, the police killed a young man who has been identified as the kidnapping suspect, not realizing that he is the sole child of a former special agent who gave up his firearms for the pulpit.
Richard Mofe-Damijo, a legend in Nigerian cinema, portrays the figure of ex-officer-turned-pastor Paul Edima, who in his peak was regarded as Nigeria’s “most deadly force” due to his involvement in multiple coups and assassinations in West Africa.
After failing to persuade authorities that his kid is innocent, Edima is shown as a penitent father who has turned over a new leaf after being motivated by his favorite Bible verse, 1 Corinthians 5:17.
In Nigeria, the problem of sluggish justice is not new. On Friday, a lot of people thought back to the terrible Endsars protests in 2020, when young Nigerians protesting police abuse were shot at and murdered. Rights organizations claimed that many victims of police violence have still not received justice three years later. To date, the question of “Who gave the order” hasn’t been answered, and it’s not unusual that giving justice takes eternity.
Justice for his kid comes with a price for Edima. He decided to put the sword in his hands. He pursues the perpetrators of his son’s murder one by one, eventually finding the army general, who, ironically, was also his previous employer.
This mirrors a typical Nigerian society, with the storyline well connected to Nigeria’s past and current situation in this context.