by Akinwande Jordan
If you are fortunate enough to reside in Border states like Lagos, Ogun or Oyo, you might have routinely been entertained and terrified by high-speeding devil-may-care smugglers transporting contraband automobiles as they evade law enforcement not far behind in pursuit with blaring sirens. Those scenarios, though brief, are what thrillers and action films are made of. Everyone likes a good chase, but the car chase is a spectacle.
The car acts as a talisman of modernity and technological advancement. But it is also a symbol of toxic fumes, gridlocks, alienation… and crime. All these traits enliven cinema —from the Hollywood blockbuster to the Nigerian home video crime thrillers that were a staple in the post-oil boom era of Nollywood. The Ramsey Nouah-directed Tokunbo exhibits none of these traits as a piece of cinema, at least. A new Netflix original screenplay penned by Todimu Adegoke and Thecla Uzozie, Tokunbo tells the story of its eponymous character (Gideon Okeke), a contrite ex-car smuggler domiciled in Lagos metropolis with an ailing one-year-old whilst mired by the affairs of the criminal underbelly in the state.
It’s the typical story of the criminal “going legit” after years of dancing with the devil. The archetypal arrangement of a criminal aching for one last score for his pregnant wife, the stuff of B-movies and John Woo flicks. Two years after egressing from the world of criminality much to the chagrin of his boss, Gaza( Chidi Mokeme), who expresses his displeasure by underpaying him after his last score — Tokunbo evolves into his version of the model citizen as a cab driver and a single parent grappling with the perils of parenting an ailing child.
Across the divide is the inevitable grander political conspiracy to abduct Nike (Darasimi Nnadi) , daughter of the newly-appointed Governor of The Central Bank, Mrs Folashade (Funlola Aofiyebi Raimi) — a seeming retaliation to the latter’s flagship economic policies which has garnered deep-pocketed detractors. So it goes; an abduction, a moral dilemma, wrong place, wrong time, one last score for the erstwhile criminal and a promise of tension in an unfolding almost reminiscent of Michael Mann’s Collateral.
This is far from Ramsey Nouah’s first foray into directing. He directorially cut his teeth with his feature Living in Bondage: Breaking Free (2019) and Rattlesnake: The Ahana story. Having featured in films of industry giants like Kunle Afolayan (The Figurine), he is no stranger to the curvature of the director’s chair.
None of the cumulative experience, however, shows forth in Ramsey Nouah’s Tokunbo—each arc is hyper-dramatised and undermined by the inexplicable urge to expound on the initial momentum without earning narrative torque. What sets out to be an entertaining thriller devolves into a blasé vision of easy devices comically employed at the expense of any true plot progression or characterization.
The habits that fraught Nollywood straight-to-streaming productions rear their ugly heads as this film, like its cohorts, once again shines in the technical department only to be marred by a leading man who exudes nothing graspable and forced macguffin between captor and captive seem like specimens in a study about Lima syndrome. Conversely, Nouah’s best work materialises in the first two acts — Gideon Okeke’s performance is more pronounced with Chidi Mokeme as they both tersely weave tension without drawing from an empty well.
Both Darasimi Nnadi and Funlola Aofiyebi Raimi also deliver laudatory performances with their mother-child dynamic. There’s no dearth of decent performances here but nevertheless the material — or the execution of the material leaves much to be desired.
By prayer or petition, the titans of industry will someday commensurately merge the material with the backend talent. Tokunbo, for all its yawning flaws, embodies the vulgar spirit of the average Michael Bay film — with the adrenaline-propelled plot and a conclusive combat sequence. The mise-en-scene is meticulously crafted and the grading sets the tone of a contrasting world set to turbulently collide. But the undignified exits of fictive logic and proper execution becomes bothersome when you take into account the established parties behind these productions.
These aren’t film students shooting agitprop on a budget and with limited equipment, ergo the concern for the subpar composition from Netflix’s assembly line. Gone should be the days of phone it in if the wherewithal to create is readily available. This is not to obfuscate the hydra-headed challenges one is faced with during the course of shooting a film, but Tokunbo is not an operatic avant-garde production, and it need not be one. What is demanded is attention to the minutiae when the sole aim is to entertain and dazzle. It remains a decent effort notwithstanding, but the daredevil smugglers of the Lagos-Abeokuta expressway have more cinema to offer with their antics on the asphalt.
