[blockquote align=”centre” author=”EfikoScore: 5.1/10″ style=”font-size: 30px”] This crisp good-looking action thriller leaves all sense behind as it drives towards a conclusion. [/blockquote]
A taxi driver desperately in need of funds to treat his ailing child finds a phone in his back seat. It directs him to pick and deliver certain goods. That is easy for a former car smuggler. But what happens when one items to deliver turns out to be a child and, worse, the daughter of the Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank?
Ramsey Nouah’s new thriller, Tokunbo, offers an intriguing enough premise. There is a ticking clock—3 hours—to keep viewers on the edge. There are seemingly insurmountable obstacles—police checkpoints at every turn. And there are villains, one of them a flamboyant, scrambled-voiced mastermind whose face we don’t see at first. Tokunbo’s desperation provides the unstoppable force against all of these. And yet, the film winds up a hot mess. How?
Straight up: Tokunbo is a film to be looked at. As far as brilliant framing and cinematic shots go, the film serves them up in spades. Nouah is enamoured of a certain kind of film. The flamboyant, larger than life picture. The kind intended to make you oohhh and ahhh at the spectacle.
As an actor, you’ll find it in his portrayal of Richard Williams, the omnipresent villain of Play Network’s Old Nollywood revisions. The first of those, Living in Bondage: Breaking Free, served as Nouah’s directorial debut and, perhaps, best encapsulates his vision.
That film saw him in a near duplicate of Al Pacino’s riveting, flamboyant character in the supernatural thriller The Devil’s Advocate.
But Nouah’s cinematic ambitions are ultimately dependent on the strengths and failings of whatever story is on hand. In this regard, Tokunbo leaves no question as to just what kind it is.
Gideon Okeke is an amazing actor but his character here has inconsistencies. At some point, he is called a sharp guy. How come he is surprised when, hours after asking for help from his old crime boss, he finds a phone in his car directing him to move things like he always did without working out who has deposited the unfamiliar device?
There are other common-sense flaws from the film’s screenwriters, Todimu Adegoke and Thecla Uzozie. How is that the best way to address one’s part in a crime is on a phone call right in the restroom of the police headquarters where an investigation of the same crime is ongoing? And with the door wide open.
Again, one would think it was widely understood that to say the words, “I trust you,” to any character in a crime or mystery thriller is to wrap that character in a red flag. It could also be a false lead. But not in a screenplay of this obviousness. In this scene as in elsewhere, it feels like Tokunbo doesn’t place much stock on the intelligence of its viewers.
Perhaps the problem is Tokunbo aims to replicate rather than tell a story. It banks on a form of recognisability. You have seen this film before. It is a pastiche of scenes from high octane Hollywood box office beasts. You’ve seen the car chases. You’ve seen the police situation room. And you’ve definitely seen the kidnap victim that somehow manages to be a cute loudmouth, to ensure you never take the ongoing crime too seriously.
It’s all meant to be light and fun and with a pretend poignancy. Is it shocking then that there are no surprises, and that the villain lacks true motivation? Perhaps the most horrendous of these soulless importations is the ghastly “supportive husband.” Here is a man who is estranged from his wife. Here is a man whose child has just been kidnapped under her watch.
No one necessarily expects him to go berserk on her, but surely, he can swing into some type of action. Any action. Watch him standing there instead with lines to the effect of “I’ll support you”. God forbid a consort pretends to have some type of usefulness in the presence of a Strong Female Lead.
The acting in Tokunbo is commendable, at least. These are longstanding professionals in their elements. Darasimi Nadi, the youngest on the roster, is in splendid form as she was in Obara’m. Chidi Mokeme has been stuck in the very same role since his turn in the Netflix miniseries Shanty Town but he does it so well. Funlola Aofiyebi-Raimi is firmly set as one of Nollywood’s strong female leads. She acquits herself powerfully enough here, but for lines of dialogue are nearly full-on cringe. Even the villain is in good form.
As the man calling the shots behind the scenes, Ramsey Nouah knows the tricks. No dynamic shot, aided by Mohammed Attah, is left untouched in Tokunbo. But we come to the movies for story first and foremost, and those responsible for this film’s story are best smuggled off to the Seme border.
