Writer/director Oyebola Ande’s spy thriller Killers Sinners & Spies centers on an assassin named Immanuel, code-named The Black Prince (Jermaine Gamble). Immanuel works for the Nigerian Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), answering to a shadowy figure known only as The General. His handler is a man called Mohammed (Ande). When Immanuel shows up, his targets try to talk him out of killing them, but he is dispassionate, always responding, “When the general says you die, you die.”
Back home, Immanuel is married to a former Russian operative named Anastasia (Marty Stroupe). She is pregnant and will give birth soon. Immanuel tries to keep his family life separate from his spy work. After Anastasia gives birth to their son, she is the one who leaves the family and returns to her espionage role for the Russian government. Many years later, Immanuel is living as a regular citizen and father, having given up his assassin role long ago. When Anastasia reappears, as does Mohammed, and Immanuel’s son is taken hostage, he is forced back into killing for The General.
The production value throughout Killers Sinners & Spies suffers due to a low budget. The soundtrack is minimal, mostly used in small sections to build suspense during action scenes. The first 2 minutes have no sound at all, which may have you checking your system to see if everything is on. Some of the dialogue is muffled and hard to make out. While the film has a global scope, every interior shot looks like an American suburban home. Ande also breaks the “show, don’t tell” rule of cinema by using text cards for critical exposition. One wonders if the budget constraints explain the two missing commas in the title.
“…an assassin named Immanuel, code-named The Black Prince…When Immanuel shows up, his targets try to talk him out of killing them…”
These are minor nitpicks and don’t hurt the overall storytelling. The performances are mediocre, and in some cases stereotypical, but adequate. The plot is constructed in titled chapters focused on key characters. The dialogue is primarily in English, but also includes smatterings of Spanish, Nigerian, and Russian. Immanuel returning to his work as an assassin years after he left that life behind has a John Wick vibe.
Ande talked about his motivation for making the film on his crowdfunding site: “As a Nigerian and a huge fan of the spy genre, I have yet to see stories where black people or people of African descent have been the central focus of such stories. We’ve mostly been relegated to either minor roles or none at all. With this story, I attempted to place us in real-life situations where we’re not just the main focus of the plot, but it is told from our point of view and perspective.”
Ande tries mightily to fulfill this ideal in a creative and entertaining film, and succeeds if some minor issues can be overlooked by the viewer. For all its faults Killers Sinners & Spies is still a solid spy thriller.
"…a solid spy thriller."
