‘Black Market’ Review: A Nigerian Crime Thriller That Falls Below its GWR Success

September 26, 2026 gave Nigerian cinema two occasions to celebrate. The first was Nigerian Cinema Day, with audiences filling cinemas nationwide for a limited slate of films after FilmOne, the leading distributor, reportedly pulled out. The second was at Tafawa Balewa Square, where over fifty-one thousand people gathered to watch Black Market and break the Guinness World Record for the largest simultaneous cinematic audience. I watched the film later, during its “limited release” in a cinema, with the record already confirmed. But its success that night was purely numerical; the film falters on every front that matters.

Directed by Fatimah Binta Gimsay, Black Market follows a group of women smugglers who run a well-oiled operation, which is tested when one member’s daughter is kidnapped by a rival who forces them into their most dangerous job yet. The film marks Gimsay’s feature debut and a departure from her largely romance-themed shorts into grittier territory.

The film opens with familiar narration from Zimuzo (Linda Ejiofor), but her voiceover does little to hold the story together. The recent double AMVCA winner is reduced to explaining events already unfolding on screen, offering neither additional context nor insight into the characters. Narration is already a divisive tool in the filmmaking toolbox, but Black Market uses it to unscrew an already unstable framework.

At times, the narration tries to explain routes and risks that never feel as dangerous as they’re supposed to be. An early operation, intended to give us a window into their world and establish the stakes, is confusing, poorly performed and ultimately played for laughs. Rather than building tension, the sequence undermines any sense of danger. There is little to keep you on the edge of your seats or raise your heart rate. Black Market disobeys all the rules of the genre it operates in. An action film with no propulsion.

The crimes continue on the acting front, arguably the film’s biggest fumble. Despite a stellar cast on paper, Black Market reduces them to amateurish performances, weighed down by dry-as-dust writing and baffling direction. There is no shortage of ambition behind the project. Linda Ejiofor leads the cast following her double AMVCA win for The Herd and The Serpent’s Gift; cast members Omowunmi Dada (EVI) and Susan Pwajok (Laraba and Balarabe) also serve as producers, while Nora Awolowo (Red Circle) partners with FilmOne on production and distribution. Yet none of that translates to what we see on screen, as though all the work put in was lost somewhere in production.

We get no real sense of the friendship between Adesua (Dada), Zimuzo (Ejiofor), Aramide (Scarlet Gomez) and Folake (Teniola Aladese) despite their supposedly having worked together for years. The characters don’t seem to know one another, the actors don’t seem to know their characters, and the director doesn’t seem to know the actors. A chain reaction of missteps.

With the performances falling short, one might expect Black Market to at least offer some spectacle. After all, it’s a product of Rixel Studios which produced last year’s Red Circle, an imperfect but somewhat kinetic film. Yet even its promising moments, like the confrontation at the river where the smugglers are intercepted, build towards nothing. The anticipation feels like a sneeze that never materializes. Even the climax amounts to an empty confrontation, followed by three flashbacks piled on top of one another in an attempt to force an emotional connection the film has not earned.

Elsewhere, the film leans heavily on sound design to manufacture tension, rarely allowing scenes a moment of silence. A riser here, a braam there, a constant ambient murmur that betrays the scenes before they can unfold. We know what a character is about to do or say because the sound has already led us there.

In the end, there’s no thematic treasure to be mined from Black Market. A film about smuggling and the economic conditions of a failing country offers no food for thought and no thrills to coast on, so why was it made?

Like the other event of  September 26, it was enough that it happened. Did we get to see all the films showing at the cinemas that day? No, but it took place and we should at least be happy about it. Was Black Market a good film? No, but we should celebrate the effort of a Guinness World Record, it’s no easy endeavor. It’s a very Nigerian film for a very Nigerian situation, where we should reward attempts with the same aplomb as excellence. The effort, the occasion and the headline are enough to heap praise on Black Market; at least the film is successful at smuggling that one thing.

A Rixel, FilmOne and Signet Ring production, Black Market premiered in cinemas on October 2 for a limited release.

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Side Musings

• Andrew Yaw Bunting is on fraud watch and we will have important conversations if he gives another performance as bad as this.
• Hauwa played a newscaster in this and it took a lot for me to take her seriously.
• When Lateef brought out an iPad to track the kidnapped girl I knew this film was not a serious endeavour because from where to where?
• Brace yourselves for Green Nigeria.