Finding Mercy Nigerian Movie

One cannot predict the circumstances that would befall a man even after the most carefully planned of situations.

In Finding Mercy, Jato (Blossom Chukwujekwu) and Rogers (Uti Nwanchuku) concocted a scheme to rob a home; their reasons appear to align more closely with dire necessity than sheer ill will.

To their surprise, during their pillaging of goods, they find that the home is inhabited–and by a pregnant woman at that, who whether through shock or poor timing, goes into labor this night she is chanced upon by these two strange men.

Throughout the Finding Mercy Nigerian movie, the plot turns are sudden and dramatic. At times wildly coincidental.

Jato decides to take the woman to the hospital and not leave her in the throes of pains while home alone. At the hospital, however, the nurses believe Jato to be a deadbeat dad, and rather than allow him to leave the waiting area, force him to dutifully remain nearby the laboring woman.

Another twist leaves the woman dead and the baby in Jato’s arms.

The morning after that fateful night, Jato takes a frustrating breath to make sense of the new world that he has come to inhabit. He finds himself in quite the predicament.

What was supposed to be a quick and easy robbery led to unimaginable circumstances.

He contemplates, albeit silently: Should he abandon the baby? Should he raise her as his own? Is this his entire fault–the woman’s death, the orphan child? Could all this have been prevented had he not decided to encroach upon someone else’s livelihood and plunder what was not his?

Surely this night forces Jato to redefine his understanding of “quick and easy,” like we all must when life shows us that no constructive outcomes are the result of so light a phrase.

Instead there are everlasting consequences for our actions (and conversely our inactions), no matter how ephemeral and trivial we believe them to be.

With all circumstances, there appears to be some silver lining in that we can perhaps muster out a sliver of good, like squeezing the last drop of substance from a nearly empty container.

Jato resolves to keep the child, who he fittingly names Mercy.

He dotes on her as if she were his own.

As Mercy (Oyindamola Lanpedo) grows older, Jato even expresses she is the reason why he works and lives and is the man who he is today.

He makes decisions about the women he dates based on their affections for Mercy. His relationship with Kassi (Rita Dominic) blossoms in part because she connects so effortlessly with his daughter.

Jato’s obvious adoration for Mercy is perhaps why we are hopeful the two are not split up when, with another heavy swing of the plot pendulum, Mercy’s father is revealed and he wants to arrange for her to live with him and away from Jato.

Mercy’s father threatens Jato with the possibility of arrest, on the grounds of weighty charges of armed robbery and kidnapping.

Underneath these charges of criminality, however, Jato appears to possess a good soul.

What happens then to overall good people who through adverse circumstances do bad things? Do we have mercy upon them or do we hold them accountable for those senseless acts committed when young, dumb, hopeless, and unthinking?

In the years following the theft, Rogers served eight years prison time for a presumably unrelated crime that remained ambiguous throughout the movie. But Jato, on the other hand, has gone scot-free from the robbery besides his decision to raise Mercy as his child. Is that act alone enough to save him from a stint behind bars?

In the end, the quest to find Mercy who has been missing from her father for more than 10 years, actually results in exercising clemency for those who truly regret their past transgressions and fear the collateral damage that associated revelations may cause.

It is an open-ended debate whether the truth is best left hidden or uncovered.

The resolution of Finding Mercy suggests that sometimes the best course is to leave the past in the past.

In order to progress, we must move beyond our mistakes from years ago and work hard to overcome those lapses, if we are to conceive of a better tomorrow.

Director: Desmond Elliot
Writer: Kehinde Odukoya
Stars: Rita Dominic, Uti Nwachukwu, Chioma Chukwuka-Akpotha, Blossom Chukwujekwu, Tamara Eteimo, Desmond Elliot, Biola Williams, Dabota Lawson