Johnny Mad Dog

A few weeks ago my good friend Eric emailed me to say he had just found a bootleg copy of the movie "Johnny Mad Dog" on the streets of Grenada. The movie was filmed in Monrovia in 2007 and is about a rebel army's advance upon their capital city with a view to removing the president from power and to kill his supporters. Eric saw the filming of the fighting on the old bridge, and I saw the filming of fighting in the burnt-out tower block off Broad Street (the Roe building?). Today I found the movie on the streets of Cotonou, and bought a copy, and have just watched it. It contains a continuous stream of four letter words and depicts many brutal murders at the hands of child soldiers. I could try to describe it more myself, but thought I'd use Eric's words instead: "While this movie is an adaptation of a Congolese book, the movie never names which country it is, preferring it to be a symbol for all of the countries that experienced a civil war in the 1990's, I guess. But not only is this movie filmed in the country where much of this happened, it also films where the exact same battles took place. New Bridge and Old Bridge both saw serious fighting on them during the war, and the many bullet holes in the light posts remain there to this day. Between the drug use, the child soldiers, the raping and pillaging, scenes from this movie seem to be lifted directly from accounts of Liberia's 14-year civil war, and since many ex-child soldiers were used, it has an air of authenticity you may never see so strongly in another movie. Case in point...even Liberia's most famous soldier, Joseph Duo, has a major part in the movie. If you've spent time in Liberia and developed as much of an interest in the country as me, or if you'd just like to catch a glimpse of the Anastasis, I would highly recommend this movie. It's raw, but it is undeniably realistic". Click on http://www.ericthibodeau.com/recent to see some shots from the movie which include the Anastasis in the background. I guess some people will think the film was made in an expensive and realistic set; we know better - every shot shows Monrovia as it was at the height of the fighting and how it remains today. And clearly the movie was made in Monrovia - the Lone Star flag can be seen in several scenes. Tragic. Olly