By Chika Ezeabiama
Cast : Tobi Bakare, Boma Akpore, Falz, Basketmouth, Sam Dede, Ronke Oshodi Oke, Toni Tones, Zubby Micheal, Mr. Macaroni, OC Ukeje, Dorathy Bachor, Seyi Awolowo, Swanky JKA
Director: Loukman Ali
The much-talked-about Nollywood movie of the year 2022.
‘Brotherhood’ was written and produced by Jade Osiberu and Abdul Tijani-Ahmed for Greoh Studios, with Adebola Williams of AW Network as the Executive Producer.
Brotherhood premiered on September 16 2022 in Lagos at Jewel Aeida venue in Lekki to the usual fanfare and razzmatazz that has since become a thing with Nigerian movie premieres since the advent of Black Panther dress-up premiere.
Like most Nollywood movies, Brotherhood did the numbers at the local box office, after just a few weeks of its premiere at the cinemas the movie was on ₦30 million and as of today (January ending) after its run at the cinemas, the movie has made a box office total of ₦328,881,120. Nollywood be making that cash as usual, we so have the numbers.
Let me officially state that this review was meant to drop last year in October when I went to the cinemas to see it. Well that didn’t happen because I got an important job text, I had to leave the cinema 35 minutes into the movie, so I didn’t finish it and I wasn’t going to pay ₦5,000 twice.
Fast forward to yesterday being January 27th 2023, Brotherhood made it to Amazon Prime Nigeria and I had the opportunity to finally finish it.
Now that said, let’s dig into this much-awaited review.
Brotherhood is directed by Loukman Ali, who is a promising Ugandan filmmaker and illustrator. I have been following him for some time and I would say I’m a big fan of his works. You need to watch his short films on YouTube to see and understand how detailed he is as a filmmaker, from THE GIRL IN THE YELLOW JUMPER to SIXTEEN ROUNDS, Loukman is a breath of fresh air and by now you already know he is the reason I watched the movie Brotherhood.
The film is simply a story about twin brothers – Wale Adetula (played by Falz) and Akin Adetula (played by Tobi Bakare). Both brothers witnessed their parents killed while they were young. Growing up the twins found themselves on different sides of a coin as Wale grows up to become a Police detective while Akin became a criminal going into prison often.
Just reading this brief synopsis you already know the angle this movie is going and the pot where the movie was cooked from #hollywood.
From Gerard Butler and Curtis Jackson’s 2018 DEN OF THIEVES to Michael Bay’s 2022 AMBULANCE to every tiny bombshell that reeks of a Hollywood Americanized story made for Nollywood, BROTHERHOOD like some of the Nollywood movies we saw last year is just another Hollywood copied piece.
The truth is I already knew when the trailer of the movie dropped that this has “Not Original” written all over it…all I wanted to see was Loukman Ali’s input as the director of the movie.
From the first scene of the movie I could see Loukman’s signature details, angles, light and camera movements. By now I’m praying and saying to myself “God let the script be good, let the actors be great and let the dialogue not be one dimensional”.
As the movie went on, all I could think of was Garth Brooks’s song “Unanswered Prayers”.
Phew!
Things were happening pretty fast in the movie as if they were in a rush to finish it.
For some reason after the premiere of the movie, I was expecting Loukman Ali the director to share and post clips of the trailer on his social media pages. I was expecting him to make tweets about the movie but hey, he didn’t. I kept going to his page almost every day to check, dude just didn’t, not on till two months after the premiere he made just one tweet about the movie and that was it.
For a director not to bombard us with his latest movie on his social media platforms about getting a gig in Nollywood, now that’s definitely a red flag. I just knew something was up, so I braced myself to lower my expectations.
Both Jade Osiberu and Abdul Tijani-Ahmed lacked the onions to deliver a script that would embody this obviously copied Hollywood movie, most of the characters were not fleshed out in detail, and neither did they allow for detailed back stories. Rather, they chose to passively allow the characters explain their past in weak dialogues.
For instance after the death of Wale and Akin’s parents, there was no scene with them growing up and facing challenges that were mentioned in the movie, not even a flashback.
While watching this movie I could tell Loukman might have had a difficult time working with the script he was given. I want to believe that some of the scenes that made this movie a bit enjoyable for me was because of the director’s knack for details and near-perfect execution.
I will always maintain this fact ” there are very, as in very few actors in Nollywood that are good”. Brotherhood did not shine in actors and their delivery.
Like I said the script is weak but even at that majority of the actors were beyond weak. Watching Falz felt like I was watching him do his usual TikTok or Instagram videos. Weak and poor delivery to the most simplest of lines, there was no difference between Falz and Wale, it literally felt like another Instagram video from Falz. Poor Falz was annoyingly bad!
Whoever thought Basketmouth would make a badass villain named Shadow must be smoking goat droppings for weed. Shadow was one underwhelming character and Basketmouth did nothing in terms of acting to uplift that character the way Chidi Mokeme did with Scar in Shanty Town.
Me shaking my head and screaming about Basketmouth then up comes Mr. Macaroni
and the lady that was playing Wale’s love interest. The only skit maker remaining to make an appearance in this movie was Sabinus, since skit makers are now trained actors.
The two actors who made little sense to me with their performance were Tobi Bakare and OC Ukeje, their face-off towards the end of the movie was cinematography perfection even though we’ve seen it in many Hollywood movies…all thanks to Loukman Ali.
Now that does not mean Tobi and OC were prime Denzel Washington and Jonathan Majors, I just feel for some reason the script and dialogue in the movie failed them. Let me not talk about the minor characters and waka pass folks, those ones were just annoying especially the hungry looking cops.
Was there a heist in this movie? The answer is an emphatic No!
But there seem to be a would-be heist that had no meaningful planning for a heist movie, all the producers did was to get Loukman to patch up scenes.
Brotherhood like Shanky Town has one outstanding individual. And for this film, that person is the director. You can tell he did all he could to make the movie work, but his effort could not save the movie.
Poor-performing actors with a weak script and story doesn’t make for a great movie no matter who the director is.
If I had paid ₦10k for this movie I for vex gan!
My rating: 4.5/10
