Endless cases of police brutality are recorded (while some go unnoticed) in today’s world and the latest release of Netflix’s Collision Course speaks the truth about a related Nigerian reality. The movie premiered on Netflix on September 2, 2022, and its direction was helmed by Bolanle Austen-Peters (BAP). Daniel Etim Effiong and Kelechi Udegbe play the roles of the two major protagonists, Mide Johnson and Corporal Magnus respectively.
The official Netflix synopsis reads:
“A law enforcement officer tries to make ends meet by soliciting bribes. But a tense run-in with a wealthy young musician changes his life forever.”
With the October 2020 Nigerian outrage of #EndSARS as the background, Collision Course serves as a social commentary on the rampage led by the Special Anti Robbery Squad. The police unit so assigned with the job to curb armed robbery ends up becoming the very perpetrator of severely violent crimes. In the movie, SARS is replaced by TARZ, the same unit wreaking havoc on innocent lives by misusing its power.
-Collision Course: Review Contains Mild Spoilers-
The title of the movie is a sound suggestion of the theme that builds it. The power of dialectics is the fuel on which the movie runs. Be it the poor vs the rich social hierarchy, the generation gap distancing a wealthy father and his struggling son, the system vs the everyman, or the separation between the mainland and the island, these are all pressing issues raised by the narrative.
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As opposed to other movies critiquing police brutality, Collision Course goes above and beyond to not only peek into the lives of the ones being shot at but also the ones pulling the trigger. Some cases, if not all, as also projected via the two characters of Mide and Magnus come to show that it’s possible for both parties at either end of the spectrum to be victims. They may start out as seeming adversaries of each other because that’s what the social hierarchy demands of them but as Mide rightly puts it, he is not Magnus’ enemy, rather it’s the system meddling with both of their lives.
The first scene itself shows members of TARZ abducting innocent men and holding them at gunpoint beside a water body at night. For them, one’s life can be bargained by sharing the pin code of a bank account. If one fails to do so or lacks the money they demand, they are shot dead in an instant. On the other hand, the wealthy, who have ample amount of money to spare, can easily pay the price for their lives and survive.
Nevertheless, through Mide’s narrative, it is revealed that even if a person is left physically unharmed, mental scars will always serve as a reminder of the traumatic night.
Magnus and Mide live on the opposite extremes of the wealth ladder. The movie makes an effort to let them both speak their truths. The first few minutes of the film pay great attention to detail about their circumstances – the place they live, the kind of transportation they own or don’t, the way they treat their partners, their professions, their clothes, and the places they visit. Although Mide is presented as someone belonging to an opulent household, the situation is quite grey, yet it still raises a valid question – do they both belong to the same Nigeria?
The answer is yes. While Mide is a struggling music maker, Magnus is an underpaid corporal, yet both are pursuing their respective passions only to feel like an outsider looking in.
Collision Course: Worth Watching?
Hannah, Mide’s girlfriend (played by Bamike (Bam Bam) Olawunmi-Adenibuyan) launches into a profound monologue commenting on the “submerged metaphor for social stratification”. While her two companions in the car burst into laughter as soon as she stops, the commentary holds ground and speaks at great length about the premise of our lives and the microcosmic reflection of the same in the movie. She mentions that the third mainland bridge divides their lives into three worlds – “One side you have a Mecca for the bourgeois. For those on the other side, the symbol of success and aspiration. Then we now have the hopeless and poor members of society that dwell in the slums underneath the bridge”.
Interestingly enough, the same bridge (as shown in the first few scenes) also overlooks what the members of TARZ call the ‘abattoir’, i.e. a slaughterhouse, where they extort money and ultimately leave innocent lives for dead.
Collision Course puts up a mirror on the street life of Nigeria, and even though Mide and Magnus are just one set of people whose lives are manifested on the screen, the last moments of the film confirm that they embody an archetype, a universalized picture of a whole. And that’s why one shouldn’t turn a blind eye to this project by BAP. It concerns all of humanity, now more than ever.
Collision Course is now available on Netflix.
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If only more could be done to curb these excesses. My one question is why Kalu Ikeagu is casted but I didn’t see him in any scene