Movie review: Tokunbo is not bad but not worth seeing a second time

I just finished seeing the new movie, Tokunbo, directed by Nollywood legend Ramsey Nouah, and it left me with ups and downs. While the movie has some good points, taking a closer look, you will realise that Hollywood and other major movie industries worldwide have overused those points. For instance, a major plot of the film is the kidnapping of the daughter of the first female governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Tell me you have yet to see a movie where an influential person’s child got abducted.

Tokunbo tells the story of a car smuggler who got entangled in the kidnapping of the daughter of a government official. A failure to pull through with the abduction will spell grave consequences for his own family.

The movie stars Gideon Okeke, Chidi Mokeme, Majid Michel, Adunni Ade, Funlola Aofiyebi-Raimi, Darami Nadi, and Tosin Adeyemi, amongst others.

What are the drawbacks of Tokunbo? There’s a plot in the movie where the CBN governor, portrayed by Funlola Aofiyebi-Raimi, had a meeting with bank executives about a policy of hers they found nauseating. One of the executives, in his objection, made a statement that sounded like a threat to the CBN governor. Shortly after the meeting, her daughter was kidnapped, leaving her suspicious of the executive who issued words that sounded like a threat. It was later realised that the executive and his colleagues had nothing to do with the abduction.

So what was the essence of the plot involving the executives, especially when they were shown only once? The screenwriters of this movie just had to insert them into the story to create an air of mystery and lead us to a dead end before exposing the actual culprit. My knowledge of screenwriting is that if a scene doesn’t lead to anything significant, there is no need for such in a movie.

Another thing I dislike about the movie is the part where Tokunbo, portrayed by Gideon Okeke, is fighting with Gaza, one of the villains. The rain that was falling in the scene didn’t look convincing. Another Nollywood movie released in August with a similar poor effect is Break of Dawn. That movie has a scene involving a man assaulting a woman under the rain. Despite him holding her with one hand and assaulting her with the other, the rain at that moment was only falling on him. I found that funny.

On the fight scene in Tokunbo, that part had a terrible chant of Gaza! Gaza!! Gaza!!! The chant, which came from Gaza’s stooges, went on for the duration of the almost five-minute fight. It was horrible and obvious that it wasn’t coming from the seven people witnessing the fight. I believe the chant was inserted during post-production.

Lastly, the scene where the vehicle Tokunbo and the abducted girl Nike plunged into a lagoon is poor. It’s unbelievable that the police, which had men on the ground and a helicopter hovering in the sky, couldn’t spot Tokunbo and the girl when they swam in a lagoon after their vehicle plunged into it.

In terms of looks, this movie did well with lighting, except in the cases where the lights were overused. The colors are amazing but in some cases oversaturated and contrasty. The daytime scenes are regular and nothing to write home about but the night scenes make the movie look cinematic.

Tokunbo gets a 6/10 because the cinematography is okay. The movie could have gotten more points if not for the stale theme and weak dialogue.