NAMASTE WAHALA

I'm not the biggest fan of Bollywood or Nollywood but I was willing to give this one a shot with an open-mind being a collaboration between the two. 'Namaste Wahala' is about two lovers (Raj and Didi) whose families won't agree to their union due to cultural and racial differences. Yeah, I know there is nothing new here, sounds like a love story movie you've heard it's plot a million times. Like I said, one has to keep an open-mind to watch this one. 

'Namaste Wahala' was listed as a Rom-com and to be completely honest, I didn't really care about the romantic part nor the comedy it had to offer. Was it funny? It kind of was. You might find yourself chuckling to some of their efforts. The romantic part? I will leave that for you to decide when you watch it.

When I watched the trailer of this movie last month, what got me interested was the subject of interracial marriage. Almost everyone is familiar with intertribal struggles when it comes to marriage but not so much with interracial marriage struggles. So seeing it addressed in a movie, I was really looking forward to it. I can't say this movie did justice to the subject but at least it was an effort. 

There is a particular issue I have with it's writing at the point of food differences which needs a good explanation from either the director or script writer. I mean whose idea was it to make Raj a lover of Indomie, like really? Noodles? I guess they forget noodles is practically a global food. They could have chosen a Nigerian food for crying out loud; it would have made more sense. There is egusi soup, ogbono soup with whatever swallow food and so many other Nigerian food combinations but they decided to go with noodles. I would also have love to see a form of language barrier but that part wasn't touched in this movie.

Moving on, another thing I found interesting in this movie is the part where Didi's father who is an Igbo man married to a Yoruba woman disagrees with his daughter's choice of husband.(I'm glad this was later addressed in the movie on the mother's side.)

'Namaste Wahala' also touches the subject of overcontrolling parents and how toxic it is. Didi's father is a wealthy man with authoritative and traditional disposition while Raj's mother is an overprotective mother making her son a mama's boy. I don't need to talk further on how bad this affects people.

Finally, you might have seen some reviews throwing this movie under the bus especially by those who are always after the entertaining factor in a movie and not the message but this movie carries some good messages, that is if you can overlook some of its cringy moments.

P.S. 

This movie might have actually been great if it was a limited tv series with maybe 8-10 episodes. It could have made use of that time to develop its characters, worked better on its comic relief, touch some other issue or challenges about interracial and intertribal marriage and so on(the budget could have been a major issue.) Let me know what you think about this movie.