By Hussein Kiganda
Director Joshua Timothy Waiswa’s first action drama is a challenge to Wakaliwood’s movies.
It’s another piece from Uganda that Netflix would probably need to pick up for streaming on its platforms.
From Isaac Nabwana’s Who Killed Captain Alex, which went viral after South African comedian Trevor Noah publicised it, to Loukman Ali’s Sixteen Rounds and The Girl In The Yellow Jumper, Waiswa (Josh SB) brings to life, another action drama with better edits and lighting.
Shot a year ago, the movie was subject to COVID-19 delays and several re-edits to make it as short as it appears.
A few issues with the coordination of the sound and the motion pictures, but these do not entirely affect it.
Unlike the Bollywood bullet sounds, here, one may think it’s a real gunshot despite the failure to show the bullet fire.
Its story clings around an operation that is made to unmask a gang, whose leader is part of the detective team.
One of the detectives called Clara(Felicity Mandela) must not resign before she works on one final operation, to net the gang leader who is Clara’s boyfriend (Cliff).
Ruyonga
Cliff doubles as her partner in the operation and is found to be the leader when he is unmasked on their wedding day. As Clara clears her groom out of action, little is in her know, that her boss (Edwin Ruyonga) heads another gang and is happy that he will be taking over the city after pulling the trigger on Clara’s head.
It’s one of the few movies that do not offer any reward or punishment to the protagonist and antagonist. Clara’s dream husband is terminated and her boss, a gang leader, who’s hiding behind the veils of police takes over the city after shooting her dead.
It is probably whirling moviegoers into cinemas to look for this action tragedy. The producer, Josephine Omunnyidde(Josephine Zhane) is an activist for girl child empowerment and this could be the reason why Felicity Mandela was given a leading role, to smash the butts of men.
Josh is not a first-timer in the film industry, he has worked on projects like Pesa, a web series and is working on a 90 minutes project called Projection that is tipped to premiere in December.
“It was my first action film and this was a challenge. We also had to keep going back to the editing desk at least three times over before agreeing on a final cut,” Josh said.
Rapper Edwin Ruyonga is new to film. Although he featured in the Pesa web series, he is yet to made a mark and this could be an opener for the God DNA rapper.
“Both mediums require staying out of your comfort zone to produce good work, and so I was automatically challenged. As a musician, I have to tell stories and messages in audio format. Visual is a different thing, so the challenge of doing something new was very refreshing, even reinforming how I approach my music-making. It has been a very educative process,” he told The Kampala Sun.
Felicity Mandela is also a musician and model.
