feature length version of Kony2012 for war pr0n loving "slacktivists"

Rating: Null/10 (19 October 2015)

Before reading this review, you should search the video "Hollywood stereotypes of African men" that's somewhat viral from a few years back. It exactly highlights Hollywood problems of depictions of Africans, and "BoNN" is another entry into the genre. Seriously, checkout some of the better "Nollywood" productions and see how Nigeria and some other African countries view themselves: modernized and with the same self-indulgent relationship problems as 1st world people.
Now then, I'm not trolling this movie with my review; I pretty much agree with the vast majority of reviewers here that it's an extremely well acted, shot and edited MoVIE created for audience consumption in order to generate more revenue for Netflix. It certainly is a masterfully crafted narrative of a FICTIONALIZED account of child soldiers during war.
However, after reading all the gushing reviews I have to agree with Red_Identity's review that there's just something lacking that other films have done better and with more emotional impact.
For starters, I think my review title sums it up pretty efficiently: this movie is for "slacktivists" who get a feel good moment about empathizing with FICTIONAL characters' harrowing war experiences; but ultimately it does nothing to actually do anything against child soldiers/slavery/sex trafficking, and only fills up Netflix's coffers without any NGOs getting any of that money.
Just like the Kony2012 viral campaign, it's a means for most of the US and UK reviewers to cry crocodile tears about the suffering of fictional characters (Hamlet's "dream of passion") when the current reality in Autumn 2015 is the REAL suffering of Syrian refugees who have no movies right now to show their plight? Yep, I'm just that cynical. And maybe that one reviewer was right: I'm probably part of that "2% potential psychopath population" who needs to get my head checked; but I disagree with another reviewer who wrote that this movie is for thinking people. And I don't like to be taken for a fool, so I'm gonna point out a few things in my friend dissenting from the other reviewers.
It's been like two days since I first saw it with friends on Netflix after falling prey to the media hype and I also saw several other movies in-between, so my brain isn't recollecting all the details; but I'm sure I can find many more "plot holes" if I watch it again some point down the line.
For me the biggest issue I have with the storyline is Agu totally "pulls off a Luke Skywalker in New Hope" with the loss of his family. He's afraid upon first meeting commandant, but very quickly "accepts" the reality of the rebels and doesn't even make any attempts at escaping the group to find his mother. For me, the drug induced sequence later of him missing his mother seems somewhat false because of this. Even when commandant tells Agu to kill the driver to avenge his father is kind of hollow when there aren't enough scenes of Agu longing for his past.
Speaking of the initial "Act of Killing" and loss of innocence of Agu, they totally went Disney with the machetes and hacking the driver. With all the other graphic violence and Netflix's Narcos, I can't but help think they didn't want to really traumatize the kid actor Attah - which is a good decision; but nonetheless the cutting away and upwards angle provided some sentimentality in this movie that's supposed to be "raw and brutal to your emotions." Another scenario comes towards the end where Agu reminisces about how he's a beast and speaks some very poetic lines about God and Satan. I was kind of rolling my eyes on how a kid without much education is speaking such lyrical lines if it's not the script demanding him to say it? Agu hardly has any education from the establishing shots at the beginning, but all of a sudden speaks like he's Wole Soyinka? Not buying it.
And as far Agu's "Imagination TV" goes, it seems like people forget that if the TV wasn't working and he has no exposure to Hollywood movie tropes, then how's Agu and his friends acting out movies? If the poverty is that dire then logically he wouldn't have seen that many movies at all, let alone act it out. That's a hammy moment from the writing and not even "poverty pr0n" level of romanticized poor people with hearts of gold. Seriously, go to some 3rd world countries and I can guarantee that poor people aren't naive innocent saints, but calculating and scheming like the rest of humanity.
I'm sure there are other moments in the movie I can point out with Agu, but these are the scenes that stick out the most for me.
Now as far "commandant" is concerned, the lack of an actual name and an actual conflict takes me out the most. Surely, somebody like "supreme commandant" knows his real name? But the fictionalized account just puts it in a vacuum and reminds me it's a movie for entertainment purposes.
Seriously, the scenes of "buck naked savages" running along with commandant trying to pull off a Col. Kilgore is kinda laughable. I understand Fukunanga is going for a hardened soldier, but running straight into gun fire seems a bit out of left field.
Also, the initial camp sequence is logically impossible because they showed helicopters searching for them so they'd never in real life camp out in the open with fires and not get shot at.
Overall I think Idris Elba gives a wonderful performance, and Abraham Attah is the breakout acting prodigy of the decade. I think a movie like this would work better about some real conflict like "Hotel Rwanda" or even the insanity of "Last King of Scotland." But face it, at the end of the day Nick Nolte's line in "Hotel Rwanda" is spot on about the West's indifference to human suffering in Africa...