The Party does not have the sleuthing, the intrigue, or the eccentricity that makes murder mysteries fascinating.
By Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku
In The Party (2025), a birthday party becomes a crime scene when the celebrant falls from his balcony into the swimming pool, in the full view of friends, family, and tenants. Akinbobola (Kunle Remi)—everyone calls him Bobo—the only child of his wealthy, well-connected parents couldn’t possibly have just fallen, so the immediate assumption is murder.
His father (Bimbo Manuel) immediately locks down the compound and calls the Commissioner of Police, who sends some of his best minds, supposedly, three investigating police officers no less. And his mother (Shaffy Bello), on her part, seeks spiritual consultation with her priest, whom she simply calls “Apostle” (Jude Chukwuka).
Thus begins the journey to discovering whodunit in this three-episode Nollywood murder mystery that has an idea of the formula of the genre and even the ingredients, but not an actual understanding of how the genre works. And certainly not the dexterity it demands.
This is a whodunit that knows that you have to dangle the killer before our eyes and then keep us occupied with distractions that make us forget, but it does not have the subtlety that such a trick requires. So, it ends up being too obvious, even though it intends to keep viewers guessing.
It’s also a murder mystery that recognises the visual language of the modern murder mystery, and so, it features intentionally creative choices in its camera shots, movements, transitions and POVs. It often knows when to linger, when to zoom in, whose perspective to adopt, and how to transition. But again, it lacks dexterity. So the cinematography struggles, so glaringly, especially with blocking and shot compositions, often affecting how information is received.
And then, The Party is so obsessed with the elements of the genre that it throws them in even when they don’t matter. Like the consistent use of surveillance shots although literally nobody on screen cares about the CCTVs apparently scattered across the crime scene. Or like last-minute evidence suddenly popping up to redirect the attention of the police from a prime suspect to a less viable suspect when neither of them is the killer anyway.
Yet, for all that obsession, The Party does not have the sleuthing, the intrigue, or the eccentricity that makes murder mysteries fascinating. Even the attempts at peculiarity in its investigators are non-committal, nothing more interesting than one investigator with a chewing gum habit, another with an expressive face, and another who fixates on the mannerisms of witnesses while fiddling with her pen.
If someone had asked me in the past which Nollywood actor could play an eccentric whodunit detective, without hesitation, I would have mentioned Kelechi Udegbe. AMAA-winning, character-actor Kelechi Udegbe. But here, in The Party, he plays an unremarkable investigator who is severely lacking in any personality beyond unintentional rashness and is basically just a bodyguard for his partner (Eva Ibiam), who is not nearly as perceptive as we are expected to believe.
And it’s not just the detectives. What we have throughout The Party are uninteresting personalities playing a variety of murder mystery archetypes in semi-interesting and occasionally humorous circumstances—an ensemble of best friends (played by Ayoola Ayolola, Ben Touitou, Uzor Arukwe, and Ray Adeka), a hated wife (Kehinde Bankole), seductive and naive mistresses (Tope Olowoniyan and Chiamaka Uzokwe), a dangerous tenant (Femi Branch), and a work colleague (James Gardiner), some of whom only manage to shine because their actors find ways to shine.
How could the characters be interesting, anyway, if even the most important of them are introduced unceremoniously? Bobo, himself, the centre of it all, is introduced in bits and pieces, almost as if his physical appearance is The Party’s very first mystery.
At least, Bobo has a memorable name. Half of the time, when the investigators refer to a witness, you have to search your memory, often unsuccessfully, to identify the witness. And if you don’t pay extra attention, you might find yourself struggling to remember the names of the detectives themselves midway into the second episode.
In fact, the murder mystery concept of properly establishing characters and tactically emphasising important hints that the audience can work with in solving the crime from their couches is completely alien to The Party. Instead, we’re fed the story, interview after interview, flashback after flashback.
It’s an isolating approach that’s only almost forgivable because of how predictable The Party turns out to be. We can’t quite feel like detectives piecing the puzzle together because the pieces are being created in real time and placed on the board in near-exact order, to the point that even witnesses have a call-and-response manner of revealing information, but since the killer is already obvious, we get to feel smart anyway for at least figuring it out early, even if we’ll never truly know the actual motive behind the murder.
Worse still, The Party consistently cheats the audience out of the game with revelations that the writers randomly pull out of a hat. If Bobo was such a philanderer, one would expect to see evidence of it where it’s ordinarily likely to manifest, like when he and his friends are revelling in the single life, before it’s wielded as multiple suspects’ motive for his murder.
And if, as the investigators so loudly insist, everyone saw Motunrayo (Bankole) on the balcony after her husband fell off, you would think that multiple witnesses would emphasise such an important point. Yet, literally only one witness has anything to say about it. Oh, and did the police discover Motunrayo’s apparently relevant profession off-screen?
The only element that truly works in The Party is its little Nigerian idiosyncrasies. Sure, it’s not always true to Nigerian realities—is “detective” really the right title for an investigating police officer, and is reading Miranda rights a thing?—but there are nicely done attempts at localisation, from a domestic worker hurrying to clean up the crime scene, and a grieving mother desperate to hear from her priest, to the social realities that can make an officer who once took a bullet in service of his country to so readily compromise an investigation in favour of potential benefactors.
The compromised officer gives the investigation its only compelling angle, with Yomi Fash-Lanso playing a limping superior officer who has misplaced priorities and questionable ethics. And Apostle’s declaration that the killer will reveal themself when they “come in the guise of an angel” bringing a “spotless gift” lends a sense of mystique to the mystery and provides the only real source of satisfaction when the killer is finally revealed.
But it’s very mild satisfaction. You might enjoy how deeply Nigerian the incompetence in this crime-solving affair is. You might even be entertained by the drama and messiness of the situations that the characters are dropped into. But you cannot come out of The Party feeling like you’ve just watched a murder mystery.
Rating: 2.3/5
(The Party is streaming on Netflix.)
Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku is a writer, film critic, TV lover, and occasional storyteller writing from Lagos. She has a master’s degree in law but spends most of her time reading about and discussing films and TV shows. She’s particularly concerned about what art has to say about society’s relationship with women. Connect with her on Twitter @Nneka_Viv