The Obituary of Tunde Johnson

The Obituary of Tunde Johnson

  • 104 Mins
  • 2019
  • en
  • star5.4/ 10

A wealthy, Nigerian-American teenager is pulled over by police, shot to death, and immediately awakens, trapped in a terrifying time loop that forces him to confront difficult truths about his life and himself.

Review

tmdb28039023

The Obituary of Tunde Johnson gets off to a promising start. The title character (Steven Silver) is a gay Nigerian-American teenager from a wealthy family. We meet him the night he comes out to his parents, Adesola (Sammi Rotibi) and Yomi (Tembi Locke), who are very understanding. Not so understanding are the two policemen who pull Tunde over later that night. Seeing as how Tunde is dark-skinned, and both officers are Caucasian, it won't surprise anyone that the former is fatally shot by the latter. And this is where everything goes downhill. Tunde wakes up in his bed, startled (for some reason, he likes to sleep with his bling-bling on). Was it all just a dream? I wish. What’s really going on is about the only thing worse than 'it was all a dream'. Yep, it’s yet another generic and derivative Groundhog Day clone. I guess director Ali LeRoi and screenwriter Stanley Kalu deserve some credit for trying to infuse this hackneyed premise with a social conscience; my question is, couldn't they have told Tunde's story without weighing it down with this age-old cinematic trope which, even if it weren’t the dead horse that people who couldn't possibly have a single original or creative thought to save their lives insist on beating, makes it next to impossible to take the movie seriously? But what can you expect from filmmakers who cast a 30-year-old actor to play a character who's still in high school? Clearly, realism was far from a priority, so I don't understand why they even bother with issues of race and sexuality.

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