Criminal, the latest film from Anthill Studios, is a hostage drama set within the walls of a hospital. The film is written by Nìyí Akinmolayan and directed by Dolapo Adigun, a product of a directing training program facilitated by Nìyí Akinmolayan last year. The film tells the story of a criminal gang leader who holds a hospital hostage in order to get lifesaving treatment for his wounded brother. 

Greenleaf Hospital, under the guidance of Dr Amara Nwachukwu (Funlola Aofiyebi), has just admitted a significant number of patients after a gruesome road accident that has left the victims in varying degrees of condition. Some are brought in DOA, while multiple are in critical condition, including a pregnant woman who urgently needs surgery to save both her life and the unborn child’s. The medical staff is quickly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the situation. Not long after, Uzo (Uzor Arukwe) and his gang walk into the hospital lobby carrying his gunshot-wounded brother (Austin Onuoha) and demanding immediate medical attention from Dr Amara Nwachukwu.  The hospital staff try their best to convey their situation, hoping to persuade them to seek treatment elsewhere. However, their efforts are in vain as Uzo insists on having only Dr. Amara Nwachukwu attend to his brother. Upon hearing that the police have been contacted, Uzo and his gang members pull out their guns to show their seriousness, holding both patients and hospital staff hostage, threatening to wreak havoc if they are not attended to. 

The fundamentals of a hostage drama are well present in Criminal. We have the character making an extreme demand, our boiler-room setting, our hostages, and a face-off with the police force. But Criminal misses the tension that is required of such a plot by a punishable mile. It lacks details that should have given meaning to the plot’s events. The hospital being overwhelmed by patients explains why they would turn Uzo and his gang away but it doesn’t explain why they wouldn’t at least administer first aid treatment. We do not recognise the stakes, the severity of the gunshot wounds, and why only Dr. Amara has the expertise to attend to him. Furthermore, the film reveals that Uzo’s brother sustained the wound the night before and he doesn’t get treated till the night of the present day in a surgery that takes little time, which hints that the brother’s condition wasn’t that serious in the first place and he could have just been stabilised and scheduled for surgery like any other patient. In essence, the stakes are too low for the situation that has been created to elicit tension. 

In good hostage dramas, there’s usually an exploration of the principal characters, their motivations, their intentions, and their relationships with other characters that take them through an arc of development. Uzo enters Greenleaf Hospital asking for Dr. Amara Nwachukwu. This suggests a previous relationship with the character or knowledge of her prowess. This evokes curiosity from the viewer. However, this would lead nowhere as further events show that neither is the case. This triggers open questions without serious answers. While the events of the plot are thrown around because they need to happen, it doesn’t create actual and proper tension where it is needed for such a genre film. Tension must be written in and built up across the runtime, in such hostage dramas.

Despite the confusing motivations, setup and lack of tension, Uzor Arukwe manages to deliver a decent performance as a hot-headed thug who thinks anything can be achieved by applying enough force, while Funlola Aofiyebi embodies the role of a stoic and unshaken character who will not be forced to do anything against her will. The performances of the secondary actors are rather aimless as their characters’ roles in the plot. 

Criminal holds a good premise and could have been a gripping hostage drama but it is obvious that the plot and its details were not assessed carefully to make it consistent and like an operating room in the hands of a greenhorn, the scar comes out looking less than desirable. 

Criminal premiered in cinemas on May 31, 2024. It is now streaming on Prime Video.

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Side Musings 

• If only Nigerian hospitals could actually be like this
• It is so hard to depict the Nigerian police force in a good light that even underthought depictions do not look out of place, and they just fit into it like a fingers in a glove
• The rate at which time is wasted in this film, all the critical patients in the hospital should have died. 
• Why exactly won’t they take him to another hospital? Obviously no one would attend to them there.
• How come the only other qualified doctor is arguing with them instead of actually attending to one of the critical patients they supposedly have? 
• Double wàhálà for dead body.
• A patient in such a condition is brought in, he’s alive, not dying, but they don’t even stabilise him, or at least stop the bleeding, they just leave him lying there while they argue. 
• Why not craft it that they had been in another hospital where he had been stabilised but needed surgery in two hours and Dr Amara was the only Doctor who could be reached within that time? But hey, what do I know? 
• So they only save one out of the critical patients they already had? 😂
• Obinna suffers the exact wound Uzo’s brother sustains and dies instantly while Uzo’s brother survives even after a whole day without medical attention 😂
• Far fewer people should have died.