Polar: Not "John Wick on LSD" but its very own movie

Movie Summary:

Duncan Vizla aka The Black Kaiser, a professional hitman is 14 days away from retirement and winding down when he is ostensibly called in for one last job by his employer – Damocles – who in reality want to kill him in order not to pay him his pensions benefits thus saving cost (yes, you read that right!) However, the team of colourful, young assassins sent in by Damocles CEO, Mr. Blut, to kill Duncan are having a hard time tracking him down as he lives a quiet life in an undisclosed snowy town.

My Review:

I settled in to watch this on Netflix expecting a John Wick-esque movie as the preview had led one to believe (eye roll at the puppy cut) but no, Polar is not “John Wick on LSD”, but it is its very own kind of movie.

I loved the colours and if you think that the characters looked like they came straight out of a comic book then you’re right: Polar is based on the eponymous comic book series published by the great Dark Horse Comics.

Mads Mikkelsen as Duncan Vizla is perfect casting; everyone else just melts away in his presence with the exceptions of maybe Matt Lucas as the colourful and loud Mr. Blut and his on-screen opposite Vanessa Hudgens as the quiet and mousy Camille. I love me some Mads (although I have not seen the Hannibal series) as his role as Le Chiffre is the most underrated Bond villain ever but I digress. Mads owns the character and you can see the blend of cold, ruthless killer and aging professional including a certain je ne sais quoi.

Polar’s plot was great, pacing very good and though all the colourful characters might be a bit outlandish for some, it is all rather solid and finds sound footing between camp, entertainment and what movies adapted from comics can be.  But please what kind of fucked up contract did these hit-men sign? Didn’t they read the fine print? And what is even more worrying is that a professional hit-man organisation will set out to kill its workers so as to get out of paying their pensions upon retirement? Oh well, I guess the name “Damocles” should have tipped everyone off and if they missed that then they deserve what they got.

Look out for Johnny Knoxville (in the opening scene) and Richard Dreyfuss as retired hit-men.

Lionheart – Some heart, plenty hype.

Movie Summary:

Lionheart, a leading interstate road transportation company, based in Enugu, Nigeria and largely owned and managed by the Obiagus, sees its future under threat. The sudden ill-health of chairman/CEO, Chief Obiagu (Pete Edochie) and an attempted hostile takeover by the competition prompted by a default on bank loans, leaves the survival of the company in the hands of chief’s first child and daughter, Adaeze (Genevieve Nnaji who also co-wrote and directed) and her uncle Godswill (Nkem Owoh), who is brought in to oversee her efforts.


My Review:

Some heart, plenty of hype thanks to it being the first Nigerian film to be bought by Netflix, but Lionheart is still just a basic movie for us Nigerians and as well as the foreign audiences that may watch it.

It does a passable job of promoting the Ibo culture and language but it is really just a lazy tale. I mean the suspension of disbelief requires such an effort that it makes a small mess of a formulaic story-line (yes, we have seen this story countless times) which is rather cringeworthy: so, their lazy presentation was the best the state director/commissioner of transportation had seen? No one else in the company knew about the loans? No debits on the company’s accounts to show loan repayments? Also, chief did not seem that incapacitated to me either and seemed fully capable of making life and death decisions that could affect his company. Or was it all a test?

So great cinematography and acting by some of Nigeria’s finest, particularly Nkem Owoh but Lionheart adds nothing to the genre but perhaps Nigeria's own version of things.

And yeah, I wish they would have gotten some wise words out of Chika Okpala too; sad to see such talent go to waste.