3162. Stolen Kiss (2009)

Starring: Ngozi Ezeonu, Jibola Dabor, Van Vicker

Director: Ugezu J. Ugezu

Running Time: 69 mins

Stolen Kiss is a Nigerian film about the matriarch of a wealthy family who seeks to maintain her household’s social standing, but sees her son go against her wishes in life and love.

Right. I haven’t watched all too many Nollywood movies, but I’m going to confidently say that Stolen Kiss is the worst one out there. At times, it’s laughably bad, which is actually the most entertaining thing about the movie, but at others, it’s little more than a crazed, non-sensical mess.

If you like your so-bad-it’s-good movies, then there is a lot about Stolen Kiss that you’ll love. Whether it be the amateurish production values, the constant elevator music in the background, the extremely candid dialogue or the countless non-sequitur moments and side stories, there’s a lot about Stolen Kiss which will make you laugh.

And in all truth, that’s the reason that you’re going to enjoy watching this movie. As a narrative drama, it’s terrible, but as a piece of probably unintentional comedy, it’s really great at times.

The most hilarious thing about the movie is the fact that it so often doesn’t make sense. You’d think it would be easy to avoid telling a convoluted, messy story when the movie runs for just over an hour, but Stolen Kiss is somehow more complex and confusing than Christopher Nolan’s Tenet.

Half of the time, scenes start without any context, and then end without tying up what on earth the characters were talking about. There’s also a random secondary storyline about a teacher who only has a sparing relation to the main plot, yet is for some reason given loads of screen time and some of the movie’s choicest lines of dialogue.

Then there’s the constant toing and froing of the mother and her son, which drags out so long that it stops being an interesting comment on social status in the wealthy classes and just becomes a boring, annoying row. If the movie weren’t so entertaining with its poor production values, this could have been a really dour watch, but those so-bad-it’s-good qualities actually save the day.

And that’s the long and short of it in the end. As undeniably terrible as it is, I didn’t actively hate Stolen Kiss, and its laughably bad nature is probably the best thing about it. With unintentional laughs throughout, there is fun to be had with this movie, but it’s still scarcely believable just how badly-made parts of the movie are, with a screenplay that’s near-impossible to follow, awful dialogue and bad production values through and through. So, that’s why I’m giving Stolen Kiss a 3.6 overall.