Voluntary mass migration is now happening in Africa. Intra-African migration has been on the rise in recent years, with African migrants moving within the continent and extra-continental emigration following suit also on a massive level. “If you feel like leaving, go to Mzansi” Mzansi being South Africa is a statement commonly used in Kenya concerning emigration. This is because South Africa has cultures resembling those of Kenya as well as good tertiary institutions that equip one with skills for the Kenyan job market, not forgetting many East Africans living in this country too. What most people do not mention is that there are Zulu hitmen from rural Natal villages who flood into South Africa’s main towns to work as mercenaries known by their name ‘Inkabi’.
Netflix has named its latest South African project after these famous assassins. This movie is one of six being made on micro-budgets from a joint film fund between Netflix and the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency mandated by South Africa’s Department of Sport, Arts, and Culture to provide support for the development, production, marketing, and distribution of films. It is directed by Norman Maake with Chuanne Blofield as cinematographer and Tongai Furusa as editor.
In Inkabi, Kenyan actress Michelle Tiren plays Lucy a struggling Kenyan immigrant to Johannesburg who speaks a lot of Swahili still. She is best known in Kenya for playing Nikita in this year’s breakout Showmax production Famous. Lucy comes from “a small village by the seaside” in Lamu Archipelago; she has a daughter named Angela (Andile Masai) whose legal custody has been denied her through South Africa’s court system because she was not exercising parental care.
Lucy bumps into a Zulu hitman played by Dumisani Dlamini (who is also known as American rapper Doja Cat’s father) contracted to kill some white man she is having an affair with. She flees from him after he kills her lover before seeking help from former hitman-turned-taxi driver Frank (Tshamano Sebe), who she had met before.
Tiren embodies Lucy well, her mannerisms are those of an immigrant woman running away from a killer while staying true to herself keeping her Kenyan accent strong voiced with rolling r’s too much vowels throughout the movie.
But it can be said that this thriller only shines because of her performance alone. The filmmaker has made a movie that relies heavily on his story but fails at telling or executing that story properly at all. There are many points where there were too many gaps left unexplained such as what happened to Lucy’s daughter and how she was taken away from her. Frank who is supposed to be used as a vessel for exploring these Inkabi hitmen lives only comes off as being Lucy’s “Mulinzi” (protector) nothing more. In fact, it seems like the script treats his personal life as an afterthought – secondary to his position as that ‘friend’ who saves Lucy from dying which is not good enough on Maake’s part since he promised through title of this film to look into real life situations with regards to Inkabi Zulu hitmen but instead serves up confused tale that ignores Frank’s character.
Apart from making viewers roll their eyes in disbelief; action scenes in Inkabi also give us little if anything else because fight sequences have been edited too quickly. At times there are mixed together laborious flashbacks of previous fights with camera angles trying hard to be arty but failing miserably. The film also does not help itself by using scene compositions which do not follow conventions set by famous crime-thriller auteurs when it comes to cinematography. Some shots lack framing while others do not bring out any visual interest due poor choice locations during filming.
Normally, people think that crime stories aren’t really about the crime, but rather what happens next. In Inkabi, Lucy personifies this by fleeing after witnessing a hitman commit murder. However much ‘aftermath’ Maake might have delved into though, Inkabi remains an underwhelming film and only saved by its protagonist’s performance.
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