Critics reviews

Mister Johnson (1990) is a film that rewards and perhaps even requires more than one viewing, for its tone is elusive and its outcome a shock... The novel is written in the present tense... Beresford and screenwriter William Boyd stay faithful to that notion, honestly reflecting the attitudes of the story's time and place and making no anachronistic concessions to modern-day political correctness or postcolonial outrage. The ironies and indignities emerge all the more strongly as a result.

Ultimately, Mister Johnson concerns the relationship between Johnson and Rudbeck, with the latter's attitude toward the former evolving from exasperated tolerance to friendship and respect. Their final scene together, in particular, earns the pathos for which it strives, though Beresford can't leave well enough alone and chooses to conclude with a maudlin montage of random people going about their oblivious business, supplemented by a shot of sunlight peeking through tree leaves.

Since Beresford cares for these characters as creations and lively figures, the performances overwhelm the scenario and continue to necessitate a return to individual scenes for potential nuances that prove elusive on an initial viewing.

Polished, rather dull, and somewhat sentimental in its efforts to catch the noble pathos of a duplicitous yes-man who goes to his grave praising his white masters, it's a bit too tasteful for its own good, although Eziashi and the other actors—including Edward Woodward, Femi Fatoba, Bella Enahoro, and Beatie Edney—do their best with the material.