Directed by Djo Tunda Wa Munga. Starring Patsha Bay Mukuna, Manie Malone, Hoji Fortuna, Alex Herbo, Marlene Longange, Diplome Amekindra, Angelique Mbumba 18 cert, limited release, 95 min
ON PAPER, this acetylene-driven thriller – allegedly the first dramatic feature ever from the Democratic Republic of the Congo – reads like an attempt to do for central Africa what City of Goddid for South America.
The story follows a mid-level hoodlum as he tours the noisiest dives of Kinshasa. Guns are waved. Sex workers are misused. Everything happens at the pace of a plummeting anvil.
The tone of the piece is, however, considerably brasher than that of Fernando Meirelles’s admired drama. After enduring the eighth or ninth absurdly lubricious sex scene – I hope you cleaned that bathtub afterwards, young lady – and marvelling at the gleaming whiteness of the chief villain’s suit, the older viewer will find his mind drifting back to a less respectable class of movie. Just when you thought Blaxploitation was dead, it pulls on its platform shoes and makes one more lunge for the sawn-off shotgun.
Riva (Patsha Bay Mukuna), a likeable class of hood, has just arrived from Angola with a truckload of hijacked petrol. That commodity is in seriously short supply and, if he plays his cards carefully, our hero could make a tidy profit.
Unfortunately, he appears fatally addicted to irresponsibility. Within hours of hitting town, he has fallen for a red-haired sex worker named Manie Malone. Bad move. As you probably didn’t need to be told, she is the chosen squeeze of the local kingpin and Riva is soon in a heap of trouble.
There are other dangers. As Riva attempts to set up a deal for the fuel, he remains perilously unaware that a rival criminal – that man in the ice-cream vendor’s suit – has followed him across the border. An eventual bloodbath seems inevitable.
Viva Riva!does offer some thoughtful insights into the mayhem that governs Kinshasa. The lights are forever on the point of flickering out. The economy is driven by barter, favour and threats of violence. But the film works best as a breathlessly vulgar romp in the vein of Super Flyand Brian De Palma's Scarface(itself indebted to Blaxploitation). There's still a place for such indecent entertainments.
