Thin Line, the second feature film from actress-producer Mercy Aigbe, is one of those films purporting to be cleverer than it actually is. We get an assortment of tenuously connected scenes all engineered, and not particularly carefully, to lead to a whodunit but it’s already clear who, in fact, done it.
As the film, which is directed by Akay Mason, begins, a prostitute named Annie (Uche Montana) makes away with a client’s item. Later, the same prostitute ensnares Raymond (Uzor Arukwe), a pastor married to Dammy (Aigbe). She records their session. Elsewhere, two of the prostitute’s colleagues talk to themselves (and the viewer) about how displeased they are with Annie, whose services are more in demand than theirs.
The identity of the killer in Mercy Aigbe’s second production is too obvious for the film to be a decent whodunit. Efiko score: 4/10
All of these episodes have been contrived to make the viewer work hard to figure out who is responsible for the death of a character who has so many enemies. It could be the pastor, who should want to prevent anyone from knowing what sins he has been up to. It could be the jealous colleagues. It could be the client who has had his stuff stolen. It could be this, it could be that. It could be that nobody bothers finding out who has sent Annie to the other realm because the character just isn’t that interesting. The characterisation is too thin for anyone to care.
It is also the case that soon after the police starts questioning the suspects, it is already obvious who is responsible. Even with the noisy distractions of suspects, nothing particularly smart is done to conceal the identity of the murderer. It’s all too obvious who the culprit is. And when the police officer in charge does figure out who the killer is, he does so through a most laughably common trick. No killer in a movie should be falling for that move after the 2000s. But nobody has told the people behind Thin Line.
