Japa (stylized as Japa!) is Isioma Osaje’s debut film. It simultaneously conveys every Nigerian’s most pressing desire and nightmare, which is to leave the country but be unable to. Produced by Inkblot and released directly to Prime Video, the film holds true to its promise. Japa arguably has the most intriguing premise from a Nigerian comedy released this year. But as with all fallible Nigerian films, Japa bears its marks of incompleteness. 

Mezu (Jide Kene Achufusi) has acquired a pass to the greener pastures of America. But he quickly realises that he is in a temporal loop, always waking on the morning he is to leave Nigeria. With the help of his friends, Kamsi (Adesua Etomi), Tobe (Blossom Chukwujekwu), Wasiu (Isaac Ayomide Olayiwola), and Sola (Seun Ajayi), Mezu will try to escape the loop and realise his dreams of leaving Nigeria. 

The standout here is the edgy, goofy visual style the film employs, almost reminiscent of Mathew Vaughn’s superhero satire, Kickass. In Japa’s case it sets a superficial tone to the film, and what one expects as a seasoned viewer would be that things heat up procedurally, but this never happens. The burning question of what status quo this story is trying to subvert is left unanswered. And because that is absent, the goofy visuals begin to feel out of place, like they are trying to distract us from the absence of something more important. 

The actors all make safe choices as always, but the performances inspire nothing. None of the leading performers leave first gear for this film. Jide Kene Achufusi (A Tribe Called Judah) inspires nothing in the viewer, and sometimes his performance tilts towards melodrama. Acting is reacting, and how one actor performs can lift or subdue the quality of another player. Throughout the film, there are no scenes where the actors push one another, and this fault firmly rests with the film as much as on the actors. Mofe Duncan’s Zino plays a slavish imitation of a fop villain but save for his confrontation with the community, there is nothing memorable or intimidating about his character. So we have a film flailing in the sea of technical mediocrity. But that is not all.

The problem with Japa is its brilliant but unrealised premise. The film had a small window of incredible profundity that if it was a bit more self-aware of, would have made for an excellent movie. And it would not have mattered whether it was comedy or any other genre. What we have here is potential unfulfilled, something proposed but unexpressed, a teaser without a film. 

When Mezu, who insistently wants to leave the country, finds himself in a loop that starts from the eve of his departure till the moment he is on the plane, every Nigerian recognises the horrific situation he has found himself in. I don’t know anyone in my generation who wouldn’t recognise with Mezu. To be stuck in Nigeria, and not just stuck in Nigeria, but also in the moment just before you are free of Nigeria, is a brilliant situation to come up with as a storyteller. But to not explore it properly, with the appropriate existential treatment, is a disservice to the story. 

Japa explores its themes superficially, adding other narrative threads to tie it up in the third act and present a badly prepared plot. The central message of giving back to the country instead of leaving is a moot one. It transfers the blame of a failed state on the individual rather than the machinators of the system. There are more important questions about the Nigerian individual to ask that the film ignores. What does it mean to feel trapped and helpless in Nigeria? What does it mean to leave your country and your stable, middle-class life, knowing you only have 2,000 dollars and nothing else to start a new life elsewhere? Why is everywhere better than here? These are serious questions that, while it may not seem so, the vehicle of comedy can adequately ask. This film could ask these questions. 

 However, Japa not focusing on these questions is understandable. A film can be whatever the filmmaker wants it to be. But the concerning thing is that this film doesn’t recognise that those ponderous questions exist at all. It makes one imagine what an A24 would do with this story. This failure is not a question of resources. It is the misuse of resources. And while films continue to use comedy as a crutch just like the Nigerian sees humour in every tragedy, we all know there is more beneath the superficial veneer of comedy. When, exactly, will we begin to scratch it?

Japa! premiered on Prime Video on March 28.

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Side Musings

• The chemistry between Jidekene and Adesua is almost non-existent.
• Granted, this film did have some funny moments. But the humour was masking narrative inefficiency.
• Didn’t get a sense that that was a community. Felt like a motley of locations across a city.