CHEQUE MATE

I liked this 2020 short film; Cheque Mate by Kiwo Maole.

It’s so painfully relatable for it paints the true picture of Kenya’s film industry whereby investors put in the monies into a project, the crew and cast do a fantastic job but, the producer overseeing the project steals the greater chunk of the money  or, vanishes with it all.

Sanaa (Aaudi Rowa)  is a young, jobless and broke aspiring actress whereas Zubedi (Brian Ogola) is a jobless, broke and heavily in debt new dad.

They both get to work in Waiguru’s (Wakio Mzenge) film as lead actress and cameraman but get shortchanged in their contracts and later ghosted after the shoot – with no pay.  So, they plan to hit her up by abducting, torturing and setting her ablaze.

Though Cheque Mate is an awesome title for a film, as far as other things go, they were subpar. 

• Picture quality wasn’t good.

• We love it when actors break the 3rd Wall but when Sanaa does it, it don’t come out right.

• To showcase how broke Zubedi is, we see him with a loadful of bills – in envelopes.  That’s not how we get bills in Kenya.

• The torture part  was over exaggerated and for a short film, went on too long.  That time would have been spent finessing other scenes.

• Setting Waiguru ablaze wasn’t called for.  They could have forced her to give them money, burn her car or house, steal from her…but set her on fire?  There are far more better ways of getting justice cum revenge.

Every aspect of Cheque Mate, with all the good actors on board, and such a strong analogy to the realities of Kenyan film, could have been so much better.  But, maybe, who knows, the producer may have pulled a similar move on his crew as his feature's inspiration, quite the paradox right?