Nigerian directs Hollywood movie

Thomas Ikimi may not be known in Nollywood, but in Hollywood, the Nigerian movie director has made a name for himself as the first Nigerian to direct a Hollywood movie.

According to Paris Harcourt of Paris Harcourt Media Consulting, London, organisers of the movie launch, ‘Legacy’ will be released in Nigeria later in the year.

Life and Beat gathered that the movie will be showing next at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, followed by the American Black Film Festival in Miami.

Talking about the movie , Harcourt said ‘Legacy’ is a psychological suspense thriller that tells the story of two brothers in conflict.

”Malcom Gray, a highly trained Special Forces soldier, has gone AWOL after being captured and tortured for months in the Balkans. He books himself into a New York hotel room, from where he calls a journalist promising to reveal damaging information about his brother, Senator Darnell Gray. Confined to his hotel room, he is visited by a series of people - firstly his colleagues from the special ops unit, then the female journalist to whom he gives the evidence about his senator brother, and finally he is visited by his ex fiancée who has broken his heart by marrying his brother. They each want to help him but his resolve for revenge is unbreakable. Tormented by guilt over his own actions as a soldier and by the personal and political betrayals of his brother, Malcolm‘s paranoia is like a pressure cooker. On the verge of violence from moment to moment, Malcolm‘s grasp on reality is gradually called into question. It is only in the last scene that his intentions are finally revealed,” Harcourt said.

http://www.punchontheweb.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201005151254065

@semid4lyfe
I saw that story in today's Punch newspaper. We have not been given full details about the movie like the cast, crew and storyline.
Lets see how it goes.

obinna5000:

@semid4lyfe
I saw that story in today's Punch newspaper. We have not been given full details about the movie like the cast, crew and storyline.
Lets see how it goes.

Yeap. . .I also saw the story in today's punch. That was what prompted me to go online to get the story. Here is the PLOT

Legacy is a psychological suspense thriller that tells the story of two brothers in conflict.

''Malcom Gray'', a highly trained Special Forces soldier, has gone AWOL after being captured and tortured for months in the Balkans. He books himself into a New York hotel room, from where he calls a journalist promising to reveal damaging information about his brother, Senator Darnell Gray. Confined to his hotel room, he is visited by a series of people - firstly his colleagues from the special ops unit, then the female journalist to whom he gives the evidence about his senator brother, and finally he is visited by his ex fiancée who has broken his heart by marrying his brother. They each want to help him but his resolve for revenge is unbreakable. Tormented by guilt over his own actions as a soldier and by the personal and political betrayals of his brother, Malcolm‘s paranoia is like a pressure cooker. On the verge of violence from moment to moment, Malcolm‘s grasp on reality is gradually called into question. It is only in the last scene that his intentions are finally revealed,” Harcourt said.


[center]AND[/center]

Here is a review: It ain't flattering I'm afraid. . .

Bottom Line: Idris Elba can't carry underwritten, uncinematic psychodrama all by himself

NEW YORK -- A would-be star-making vehicle crashes in "Legacy," Thomas Ikimi's stage-ish expedition into political paranoia that rests fully on the shoulders of Idris Elba. Muscular as those shoulders are, Elba can't invent convincing psychodrama where an underwritten script fails to -- and in the attempt, he chips away at the esteem he earned playing Stringer Bell in "The Wire." Elba's name may move some units on video, but distributors aren't likely to find it enough to justify a theatrical release.

Eighty percent of the film's budget appears to have been spent on the opening sequence, which is about the only thing shot away from the movie's one-room main set. We join Elba's Malcolm Gray and his black-ops crew (including "Wire" costar Clarke Peters) mid-mission, as their search for an arms-dealer's stash turns out to be an ambush.

Cut to months later, when Gray, having apparently escaped captivity after gruesome torture, moves into a seedy hotel room and sets up something of a base camp. If his mysterious requests to have everything delivered to his door are aimed at keeping a low profile, they fail -- soon Gray's fellow soldiers find him, and he invites others to visit, like an ex-fiancee (who, believing he was dead, married Gray's U.S. Senator brother) and a journalist who rightly suspects that brother to be hiding dark secrets. Dark as in "Dark Hammer Operations," the assassination squad Senator Gray ran and Malcolm is now prepared to expose.

But are those visits real? Midway through the picture, Gray starts experiencing moments of freakout that cast doubt on practically every encounter; by the movie's end, the reality of each scene is so much in question that we wonder why we should care what the characters do or say.

"Legacy" has the look and feel of a television production -- it might have built up some B-movie steam had writer/director Thomas Ikimi sent the scarred vet on a score-settling mission rather than delve exclusively into his psyche, but the faith cast and crew apparently have in Ikimi's story is misplaced: The script never moves beyond its building-block cliches to sell us on whatever it is -- guilt, fear, trauma -- that has pushed Gray down this path.

As a result, the scenes of inner turmoil on which Ikimi places increasing weight -- with Gray dousing his head in the sink, trying literally to shake away disturbing memories, and making interminable videotaped confessions -- play like bad acting-school exercises and help doom this apparent attempt to turn an up-and-coming actor into a full-blown star.

Production company: Black Camel
Cast: Idris Elba, Eamonn Walker, Monique Gabriella Curnen, Clarke Peters, Richard Brake, Julian Wadham
Director: Thomas Ikimi
Screenwriters: Thomas Ikimi
Executive producers: Idris Elba
Producers: Thomas Ikimi, Arabella Page Croft, Kieran Parker
Director of photography: Jonathan Harvey
Production designer: Gordon Rogers
Music: Mark Kilian
Costume designer: Harriet Edmonds
Editor: Richard Graham, Thomas Ikimi
Sales Agent: Thomas Ikimi

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/legacy-film-review-1004086273.story

From the cast, it looks like a low budget movie with Idris Elba as the only popular actor. Thomas Ikimi was involved in almost everything from story, editing, producing and directing.

I heard he had difficulty getting funds for "Legacy". If this movie becomes a hit, he will not have problems getting funds to do another movie from film executives.

I wish Thomas Ikimi the best.

To me also this movie seems quite low budget but as a first direction it seems good movie. Even the cast of this movie looks good. I would love to watch this movie and waiting to be released.