Abominable Advent Calendar Day 24: Who Killed Captain Alex? (2010)
Crapsterpiece Category: B-Movie Badness
Who Killed Captain Alex? is “Uganda’s first action movie.” Full of “supa action!” and filmed primarily in the Wakaliga slum of Kampala, Uganda in 2010, it was made with a whopping budget of US $85. Yes, $85.
Captain Alex’s director, Nabwanda I.G.G., grew up with a love of cinema and was heavily influenced by the films he saw as a child, including and especially Cannon films during the Golan-Globus ‘80s and adventure films with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude Van Damme. He pulled together every resource he possibly could, convincing everyone he knew to be in the film; building props by hand (the bandoliers carved from wood look remarkably realistic in some scenes); and charging the batteries for his video recorder in the only place that had electricity—the local beauty salon. And since nearly everyone in Nabwanda I.G.G.’s world is a kung fu fighter, many of his actors learned marital arts, especially Bukenya Charles, who plays Bruce U., and who is still teaching martial arts to kids.
The plot of the film is complex, but in a nutshell, Captain Alex is a Special Forces officer ordered by the Ugandan president to take his platoon and raid the Tiger Mafia gang’s base. During the raid, the commandos capture the brother of the gang’s leader, Richard, and escape.
Richard retaliates with an assault on the USF base that results in Captain Alex’s death, but the identity of Alex’s killer is uncertain. So Bruce U, Alex’s brother and a martial arts expert, must get revenge on the Tiger Mafia and stop them before they can put a larger plan into effect to take over the Ugandan government. All of this requires explosions, gunfights, hand-to-hand combat, a now-infamous (toy) helicopter scene, and even some parkour.
The special effects are, frankly, hilarious. But it’s astonishing what this group of people managed to do with $85 and one video camera with a dodgy battery.
Since the films Nabwanda I.G.G. grew up with were rarely, if ever dubbed into Luganda or other Ugandan languages, oftentimes Ugandans who spoke English would sit in living rooms or theaters and translate and add commentary to the films as they were playing. This tradition evolved into the “video joker” tradition that exists today, where a voiceover is added to films explaining and commenting on the film.
When Captain Alex was originally released, it had no voiceover, but people missed it, so Nabwanda I.G.G. asked VJ Emmie, a popular video joker, to add commentary. The result is the version of the film we have today, and frankly, the commentary is not only hilarious, it’s helpful if you don’t know a lot about Uganda or you get lost in the Byzantine plot. The original film, with no commentary, was lost during a power failure.
Although it’ll never be considered a great piece of cinema, Captain Alex is a ton of fun, and its makers’ love of film shines through. So much so in fact that it captured the imagination of Alan Hofmanis, a programming director for an American film forum. Hofmanis wanted to help Nabwanda I.G.G., but quickly learned that sending materials—even a roll of gaffer tape—to the Wakaliwood team, as Nabwanda I.G.G.’s group were calling themselves, was difficult and prohibitively expensive because of tariffs. So he jumped on a plane and went to Uganda with no plan, and ended up starring in Bad Black, one of Nabwanda I.G.G.’s follow-up films.
As we learn from VJ Emmie in Bad Black, in Nabwanda I.G.G.’s films, “commando” means both “commando” as we understand it and “hero”; characters are often told to “Go be a commando!” like we might tell someone to “Go be a hero!” or even like we might say “Man up!” One of the best scenes in Bad Black is when one of the village boys “trains” Hofmanis to be a commando.(“You be commando! I be you Mr. Miyagi!”) The training consists of a montage borrowed from every Schwarzenegger and Van Damme movie you’ve ever seen, and includes pushups, running, and lunging—punctuated by the boy smacking Hofmanis around or getting the rest of the village children to chase him, Benny Hill style. It’s priceless. When you’re in Wakaliwood, expect the unexpectable.
