About a week or so ago, a friend brought to my attention a so-called legal thriller – The Tribunal (watch trailer), produced by Kunle Afolayan and starring such Nollywood heavyweights such as Omotola Jalade and Funsho Adeolu. With cast and crew of such pedigree, I had hoped to see something great and mindblowing. In my mind I expected a new standard set for legal thrillers in Nollywood, maybe our alpha version of My Cousin Vinny. I had high hopes that maybe we would have a movie that finally gets to navigate the interesting mazes of litigation in Nigeria accurately. Well, here goes my review of The Tribunal.

After having to hunt down and see it in one of the few remaining cinemas in Lagos still putting it up on their showtimes, I think my expectations may have been a tad too high.

To the movie itself, a quick summary goes thus. An albino banker lost his job and employed an old, washed up a lawyer to help him legally pursue discrimination grievances against his former employer.

Funsho Adeolu played Jimi, a once-successful litigator, who for a series of (not well explained) unfortunate circumstances had his fortunes turned upside down and was fully transitioned into what we call “Charge and Bail” Law practice. We have Damilola Ogunsi, a whinny, annoying albino character who is not very much likable, losing his job for being despised and discriminated upon. Omotola Jalade plays a cheerless bank executive with the constant facial expressions similar to a person with bowel stress. Ade Laoye played a convincing role of a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Law School graduate with all the hopes in the world of using the tools of legal badassery to make good prevail over evil.

I write this review of The Tribunal as a lawyer, so let’s look at the movie’s performance on that front. I think it was average. It depicted the life of a charge and bail lawyer. Growing up in the training of the profession, a lawyer is made to understand that Charge and bail is one of the most undignified things a legal practitioner would be involved in. It is very much frowned at, and one is seen as completely irresponsible and mediocre to choose that as his area of law practice. Those scenes that portrayed it were quite stark. I cringed and shifted uncomfortably in my seat while saying a silent prayer forbidding such a fate for my hopeful self. Well done, they did well in that front.

However, I almost could not get over the fact that the judicial setting used was a Tribunal and not a full-blown courtroom as provided in our nation’s laws. Every lawyer knows that the right forum to bring employment and trade matter is exclusively the National Industrial Court (NIC), not the so and so employment Tribunal where the legal battles in this movie took place. On this, I merely went ahead and assumed that the NIC had not been established during the period the film was set. Worked for me.

Read complete review at http://www.thatnollywoodblog.com/lawyers-review-of-the-tribunal/

Cc lalasticlala

I'll love to see this movie myself. I hope movies like this will also be aired on TStv.

Anyone who doesn't know much about TStv should check here:

TStv Nigeria: Decoder, Price, Subscription, & Channels List

It is in cinemas nationwide