Set in the darkest recesses of the underworld, The Basement begins with a mysterious phone call. A cat sits up, a dog whimpers. It’s a distress call. Somebody has been picked up by hooded men, who probably have hooded eyes. Bundled into a waiting van, the abducted person finds themselves thrust into an arcane world of tweets and retweets as a senior military officer, who lives in the basement, rallies his algorithmic troops.
Harnessing his X account, it becomes his Weapon of Maths Destruction. As one plus one becomes three Bachwezi, fabled to rise from the basement and create a new world order. The order is largely a miscellany of alcoholic beverages. There was no waragi, however. So the senior officer is getting restless. Kampala is restive. The day of denouement has arrived. Cometh the hour, cometh the man, they say. Well, whoever “they” were has left a lasting impression on the senior officer.
He must now don the cap of a scholar and teach a dialect he barely knows himself. Due to his choice words being lost in translation, his lessons take a violent turn. A twilight battle ensues, with KB in the blue corner and Bobi in the red. They are up against the basement ogre, with Shrek-green dollars to match his military seniority. The ogre, like the Democratic Party, is green on the outside but yellow inside. He pulls out his guns, points them at a picture of Mzee and declares he is going to the bush. Yes, the bushy beard on the face of Bobi’s bodyguard. The movie The Basement was produced on a budget of unlimited state funds. Denzel Washington was approached to play Mzee in the movie. However, he pulled out of the project when it was revealed that he would be made the new Wazalendo boss, instead of being given a salary.
The Basement has been billed as a period drama. That’s because Uganda is currently in the dark ages. Critics were unforgiving about its ensemble cast, featuring a series of bananas in one scene-stealing role that proclaimed yellow as the new black. “The bald-headed basement ogre is convincing as a ‘BMW’, cruising for a bruising in every scene like he’s on the set of Fast and Furious yet the only thing fast and furious about his performance is how it uncomfortably explodes like diarrhoea,” said a rather discerning critic who could be Spire. Another critic was equally unimpressed. “The pulchritudinous coquettes, superannuated seniors, defenestrated homes and disgruntled denizens of a demimonde that should be extirpated prove that Uganda is too small for more than one Muchwezi,” said one critic, who other critics believe to be Kakwenza or Mbidde.
On the whole, though, The Basement has proven to be sheer magic. As soon as it appeared, several citizens disappeared. Nobody has seen such a disappearing act since money became absent in the economy. At the movie’s premiere, the yellow carpet was actually blood-red. Its presence was the crime that dare not speak its name. So everybody who attended the rather glitzy affair was careful. They didn’t want 27 guns pointed at them, even if their name was Kabamba. It is already streaming on ‘Netfricks’, if one has been attending lessons in the basement. Some say it might win an Academy Award at the next Oscars ceremony for its gritty portrayal of the goings-on in the dark depths of the netherworld.
The actor they chose to act as a deranged senior officer hunkered in the basement is Abbey Mukiibi. In the movie, he’s seen throwing an onslaught of tweets, which kick up a storm in a jaw-dropping performance that is sure to win the audience the best actor award. That’s because if the audience doesn’t act like they like the movie, and act very well, it will end up in the basement. The Basement is rated as a horror comedy, but others think it is a cartoon. Whatever it is, it will surely be a hit: from the extremity of a Mpekoni. The movie’s theatre run will be almost 40 years. So prepare to age disgracefully when you watch it, or you might even end up in the basement.
