Wùlu

Shot for a good deal of the time using hand-held cameras, "Wulu" is an African thriller that has an urgency and a vibrancy most Western made films lack. Ladji, (a beautifully understated Ibrahim Koma), is the young man who, after losing his job on the cross-border taxis, takes up smuggling cocaine with lucrative if highly dangerous results. First-time director Daouda Coulibaly knows how to construct a narrative that is tight and punchy with never a wasted shot. The film has the feel of a great little B-Movie; the locations may be exotically different from what we're used to but Don Siegel could have made this and that, by the way, is a compliment. Totally terrific.