“Katangari Goes to Town” centres around a retired police detective who acts as a vigilante in a community. However, he is asked to come to the city to look into the death of Bello, his affluent cousin, who thought he was killed. There, his job is to track down the patriarch’s killer before his will is read.
Even behind all the crude prosthetics, Segun Arinze is pretty recognisable as Katangari. However, this prosthesis also serves as a character trope of the wise old sage whose life experiences have moulded his perspective on and relationship with people. Like all the detectives in the whodunit genre, Katangari is a loner who is odd, socially inept, and antisocial.
Plot
When we first encounter Kantagari, he is after an infamous band of bandits who are terrorising a community. He threatens to use Django, his rifle, which he occasionally personalises like every other of his precious possessions— another rifle named Ratatok, or even his old Volkswagen named Shagari— during the film, to shoot the bandit leader during the arrest in a fairly humorous moment that also establishes the tone for the remainder of the film. However, his peaceful rural existence is upended when he gets a notification from Mima (Patience Ujah), the late Chief Bello’s (Edward From) personal assistant, telling him to travel to Abuja and look into the late Chief’s death, if not he will lose the land on which his home is built. Thus Katangari Goes to Town.
Katangari is introduced to several family members, including his nephew Wash (Victor Panwal), who is supposed to inherit his father’s business but wants to be a DJ instead; Chatong (Gbubemi Ejeye), his niece, who wants to run the family business but is unable to do so due to her gender; their mother and chief’s ex-wife, Ulan (Ireti Doyle), who is well-known for her extravagant lifestyle; Sophia (Munachi Anii), the chief’s wife; Audu (Sani Muazu), the business partner; and Pastor Dominion (Bethel Njoku), all of whom are prime suspects in the chief’s murder and who attend the reading of the chief’s will. However, the chief recorded on video before he passed away that Katangari would have complete authority and that the will would not be read until the offender was apprehended. And nobody is allowed to depart until the murder has been solved.
Character Analysis
“Katangari Goes to Town,” directed by Reuben Reng lacks the suspense and excitement of a whodunit. There is no compelling reason for any of the suspects to have killed the deceased chief. The characters and suspicions are all finished off by a pretty simple script written by Emil Garuba. This lack of surprise and excitement makes it easy for the focused audience to figure out who did it by the middle of the film. This lack of nuance, which is unusual for a whodunit, makes the film’s plot stale and boring to watch.
Furthermore, as part of the character development, none of the characters have any agency. Since Katangari is the only fully developed character with adequate screen time and verbose conversation, which makes him clever and humorous, they primarily function under his guise.
The speed and flatness of the characters in “Katangari Goes to Town” add to the film’s sluggishness, which is hindered by a lack of narrative coherence. There isn’t any intriguing premise to entice us to see the film. Even a seasoned actor like Ireti Doyle is underutilized.
Critical Review
With the acquisition of “A Weekend to Forget,” another Nigerian whodunit, and “Katangari Goes to Town,” Prime Video continues to release subpar mystery thrillers that fail. That is not to say that these films lack substance; rather, they are just beyond their scope and ability to produce such a piece.
Upon reading the synopsis of “Kantagari Goes to Town,” I assumed that it was partially based on “Knives Out” by Rian Johnson (2019). However, this completely overlooked detective tale would not delight either Agatha Christie or Rian Johnson.
Due to a badly written script and the lacklustre performances of most of the ensemble, “Katangari Goes to Town,” is an Unsuspenseful Whodunit which is ultimately more humorous than thrilling to watch. I came out of it asking myself whydunit?
Final verdict: Katangari goes to town gets a 4/10.
