Daniel Etim Effiong’s debut feature sits at the centre of an important political quagmire: a country refusing to tackle a complex insecurity issue that threatens to destroy an already delicate national fabric. It takes on a huge task in its almost two-hour run time and is successful at showing the raw violence that exists in the country, but sometimes it is bogged down by its ambitions.
Things take a turn for the worse when, on the way to their hotel after a wedding ceremony, Gosi (Daniel Etim Effiong) and his just married friends are captured by violent bandits. From that moment, we are plunged into a tense unfolding that tackles the stakes in the forest and the cultural shortcomings outside—the former more cohesive than the latter.
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The Herd doesn’t waste any time pushing you into the deep; the immediate danger of its premise doesn’t delay and violent decisions keep you unsure of whose survival is assured, pulling you deeper into the forest (where its best scenes are) with the captives. A phone call between the bandits and Garba (played by Adam Garba), the officer in charge of the case, navigates a push and pull for information that the bandits need for their payment and Garba needs to keep the captives alive. The moment never lags, and the actors on both sides of the call carry their suspicion and mind workings well.
When we leave the forest, the film starts to stumble with its focus tilting to show how all cultures and religions are implicated in some way. These laudable side plots attempt to complicate the prejudice of culture. Tina Mba (Suspicion) and Norbert Young (The Black Book) lead a plot point about the perverse nature of the Osu caste system as it clouds their empathy for their son, Gosi, who is in captivity. Its faults exist in the obviousness of its commentary, it is proselytism first before storytelling, which dampens its effect. The better-handled side plot is one with Lateef Adedimeji (Lisabi) as a pastor with ties to the bandits. It’s an even fit that doesn’t deviate the film even though their story is quickly forgotten after serving the main narrative.
The thread that weaves through the narrative of the film is desperation of all kinds. The obvious one is the desperation around the kidnapping: the relatives of the victims want their loved ones released, the bandits want the money as soon as possible. On a more subtle level, it drives all the decisions in the film both major and minor: the watch that is taken from a dead body that forms a key narrative shift is an act of greedy desperation; Gosi’s wife, Adamma (played by Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman), moves through the film propelled by desperation to save her husband that makes her succumb to a sinister desperation her in laws fabricate to keep her away from their son. The bandits themselves (led by a brilliant performance from Ibrahim Abubakar as Anas) have split from the Sheikh (an already established leader of a bandit kidnapping group) as an act of desperation to chart their own villainous course. Habiba (Amar Umar), the most compelling character, is desperate to survive. A captured young woman who is now married to the leader of the bandits, she straddles a peculiar path where she holds sway over their operations but is also acutely aware of how her survival as the sole woman among violent men is an act of radical selfishness. She represents many captured school girls who were never released and ended up radicalised into a life of terror.
The desperation that pervades the entire film is a true reflection of where we are as a nation, desperate to the point of collapse. That desperation has eaten away at our values and taken us to a kind of destructive self-preservation. The Herd tries to capture the corners we have been pushed to as a nation and how pushing at the corners of a room will collapse it, but it is sometimes shy to put forward any sort of clear conviction—it is more concerned with implicating all tribes and religions beyond the bandits, which dulls the sharpness of a real stance.
Still, this hesitation is preferable to the hollow violence that has become a staple of recent Nigerian cinema. Films like Gangs of Lagos, Brotherhood, and Son of the Soil deploy brutality as pure spectacle—aestheticised carnage stripped of political weight or consequence. The Herd, for all its reluctance, at least understands that violence in Nigeria isn’t just a backdrop or style. It’s rooted in material desperation, in systems that have failed, in people pushed beyond their limits.
This is supported by acting performances that never veer into caricature in a story prone to it. The bandits are frightening and trigger-happy, eyes dancing with evil intentions. Towards the end, we see Yakub (Ladani Suleiman), the feared lieutenant of the Sheikh, on a mission, appear for a short while with a voice deep as the well of evil the characters exist in and steal the scene with his unbridled revenge. Habiba is stoic, her voice and posture hardened by time in captivity and rising to the top as Anas’ wife and confidant.
Daniel Etim Effiong (Collision Course) as Gosi is in a state of tearful shock, almost like he cannot believe his fate while he navigates a deteriorating Genoveva Umeh (Blood Sisters) as Derin who swings between suicidal intentions and numbness with the emotional range for both—even though we lose her thread during the middle of the film. The rest of the cast keep the film grounded in its violent and desperate setting with performances directed by Etim Effiong.
Helming both direction and lead role is a common occurrence in filmmaking that sometimes drags the film down, but Daniel’s focus on the uneven story written by Lani Aisida (Say Who Die) allows its best parts to come forward. He navigates the necessary tension, moving from forest to city with ambitious editing choices that sometimes falter but show intention—there is a transition close to halfway through the film that distractingly switches scenes.
The Herd concludes as expected, but with an awareness of aftermaths. These people who have been motivated by desperation, what happens next? It doesn’t lean into hope because the reality it is inspired by is hopeless, but it also feels complete in that way. Many lines of dialogue in the concluding scenes are awkward attempts to close out arcs and open up others, but it still doesn’t take away from the cautious relief you feel and the breath you finally take while still wondering: this could be me or anyone I know.
The Herd premiered in Nigerian cinemas on October 17, 2025, before its digital debut on Netflix on November 21, 2025.
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Side Musings
- The film concludes with a James Bond-esque song that they should put on streaming.
- When Garba opens the door to his closet filled with guns, I let out a chuckle because it felt so fake.
- Tina Mba has once again shown up in a Nollywood film to give an acting masterclass.
