Namaste Wahala is a Nigerian Romantic comedy film directed by Hamisha Daryani Ahuja. It stars Ini Dima-Okojie and Ruslaan Mumtaz lead roles and was released on 14th February 2021 on Netflix.
The film is about an Indian boy Raj (Ruslaan Mumtaz) an investment banker and a Nigerian girl Didi (Ini Dima-Okojie) a lawyer and they both fall in love with each other. Love at first sight happens but they didn't know how their parents are going to react to this relationship. Things start to take a disastrous turn when the parents of the two from two different background and country collide. Didi's father (Richard Mofe-Damijo) wants her to marry a Nigerian boy Somto, an employee of her father whereas Raj's overprotective mother wants her to marry an Indian girl. Seeing the clash of their parents, what Raj and Didi will do? Will they break up or they will try to settle this with their in-laws?
The story is by Hamisha Daryani Ahuja and the screenplay is by Diche Enunwa and Temitope Bolade-Akinbode. Well, the story has nothing new to offer as we have seen many of these cross-cultural romantic comedies and the best I could think of is 2 States now and Namaste Wahala does the same thing but doesn't match up to that level. The parents are the villains here as there is no one to threaten their relationship so the parents had to be to add the spice of entertainment.
The way they fall in love made me laugh, jogging on a beach, and they collided. The writers also tried to involve the female lead in a detective kind of stuff, nothing to add for the film apart from length. It is just to show how our heroine Didi stands for truth and only truth. The relationship of her with her Dad or Mom has nothing to show apart from saying her to get married. She is a lawyer and works for an NGO too, she has friends Leila (Hamisha Daryani Ahuja) who keep getting bouquets from mysterious Mr. T and Angie (Anee Icha) is always excited about boys.
Everything is so shallow here, nothing impresses but surely it does offer some genuinely funny scenes like when Meera (Sujata Segal) Raj's mother, lands in Nigeria and her quarrel with a taxi driver, or when Didi and Meera serving the food to Raj and then checking whose dish he ate the most is undeniably funny. Namaste Wahala has a feel of a YouTube film or series that you can stream for free, with eye-popping and vibrant colors and depthless treatment to the subject of the film, Hamisha Daryani Ahuja fails to deliver anything solid.
Ruslaan Mumtaz as Raj is just about okay, showing his minimal expressions, he is fine. Ini Dima-Okojie whereas impresses and Anee Icha also leave her mark. Ajoke Silva as Didi's mother is very good and Sujata Segal as Raj's mother is irritating and unnecessarily loud. Others are just fine.
The cinematography by Mex Ossai is very poor and doesn't give you the feel of a film. It feels like a home-recorded video. The music by Mi Agaba is nice though, a couple of good songs are there, but forgettable, the background score by Praja Tantra is a misfit, too dramatic sometimes. The editing by Abhishek Ojha is fine.
Namaste Wahala is any other Netflix romantic comedy but with average production quality. It is silly and very stupid but never boring. It's below average and has nothing new to offer but surely it had the charm to hold the audience. If you're thinking to start this film, enter with low expectations, you will enjoy this cross-cultural romantic comedy even you will know from the first five minutes only that it is going to be bad.
Rating:- 2/5
Now streaming on Netflix.
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