Synopsis: Brotherhood tells the story of twin brothers, Wale (Falz) and Akin (Tobi Bakare) who become orphans when their parents are killed by armed robbers. After years of fighting to survive on the streets of Lagos, the brothers fall on opposite sides of the law with Wale joining the police force and Akin joining a notorious gang of robbers.
Brotherhood is a Nigerian crime-action thriller produced by Jade Osiberu and i must say it was quite entertaining. Good storyline, plot progression was coherent, I liked the movie setting, the lighting, the special effects, their costumes, the action sequences were really impressive. I especially liked how the cast handled their weapons, it looked very natural and believable, the use of explosives was cool too. That scene where Akin fell into the water at 3rd mainland bridge and that scene with underground weapons were really cool, I was so proud of Nollywood.
Acting and casting worked to a very large extent. They all did really well. Special accolades to Tobi Bakare, he has grown so much as an actor. Falz also did a good job showing us a very different side of him. I must also commend Ronke Oshodi Oke and Sam Dede (did you see that scene where Sam Dede got shot? I actually re-watched it twice, the emotions were so real, that man can act abeg!). Some people might argue that most of the BBN stars had no business being in this movie, while that might be true, I think they all earned their keep, none of them acted poorly.
Unpopular opinion- I did not think Basket mouth did justice to his role as Shadow, while he was not bad, he just did not have the range. I can’t forgive the fact that they wasted Deyemi by giving him just one scene (he could have been Shadow and Basket mouth would have been the boys’ father. 1 scene would have been more than enough for Basketmouth’s acting debut).
Another thing I liked about this movie was its ability to create a lead character that the audience could cheer for. The ability to create characters that inspire strong emotions from the audience is not something that we see all the time in Nollywood, so I was glad that this movie tried to create a character we actually liked, a character that we could root for. Even though Akin was an armed robber, we had empathy for him, we were invested in his story and at some point we actually pitied him. Personally, I really was hoping he would escape somehow and when I found out he survived, I cheered! You know that scene where Akin shot Izra and said “Koni da fun awon to ni e”, I loved that scene so much!
Brotherhood is definitely an upgrade for Nollywood in the crime thriller genre and I am sure so many people would enjoy it. However, Brotherhood was not without its issues.
What were the issues?
Character development could have been better. For example, the death of the boy’s parents did not look random, it was a targeted and planned attack, it would have been nice to have a little backstory. It would have been nice to see a little bit of how the twins grew up and the decisions that informed the kind of men they became and at what point exactly they became enemies. It would have been nice to watch Wale and Kamsi’s love grow naturally, we jumped from first meeting to pregnancy so fast, it was a little disappointing. They should have cut out unnecessary scenes (like the party) to make time for these other important aspects of the story.
What seperates a good heist movie from a mediocre one is it’s ability to show the process. Not once did they show us how exactly they got the intelligence for all the robberies. They made references to random people but nothing concrete. Who were their sources? Why would the same Bank transport money after a major robbery the previous day, knowing fully well that there was a security breach.
Another issue I had with this movie was that there was no investigation. This movie would have been more exciting and thrilling if their elite SWAT team actually showed sign of intelligence and strategic reasoning. All through this movie, the SWAT team did not make one proactive move towards apprehending the ojuju boys. Not one critical thought, not one calculated move, the most useless investigative team I have ever seen. Half their screen time, they were sitting down at their desks like glorified civil servants.
After the first robbery, the SWAT team discovered that the plate numbers on the vehicles used were fake, how did they know this? How did they get images of the vehicles? Where there CCTVs around the crime scene that captured plate numbers? If so, the CCTV should have seen that Adura the driver was not wearing a mask, the CCTV should have seen that they used a LAWMA truck, maybe checking records of LAWMA trucks could have been a good way to start because how did they get access to a government owned vehicle.
After the Bank robbery, they did not even try to go to the Bank to interrogate the workers there, who were the people who knew about the cash movement and so on. These are just my thoughts yea, but I just wanted to see them thinking and strategizing to apprehend these criminals but they gave us nothing.
Instead, we saw so many unnecessary scenes. For example, someone found a video clip of the shooting that killed officer Daniel, who recorded the video and how did the police get it? Was there CCTV in that area too? Why was that scene necessary? After seeing the video, what did they use it for? Akin recognized his brother and just stood up and nobody thought his action was strange, not even his rival Simon tried to secretly follow him, so what was the point of the hostility between Simon and Akin if it would not contribute anything to the plot progression?
In this war between the 2 brothers, they did a fine job showing us how smart Wale the thief could be but they did not do anything exciting with Akin’s character. They did not raise the stakes, there was no final showdown between the brothers, Akin did not have to make any tough decisions. It was just very underwhelming.
Let’s talk about the third and final robbery…
While I acknowledge and appreciate the effort it must have taken to shoot that 3rd mainland bridge scene, I’m afraid to say that the entire traffic scene looked so fake. There were vehicles only on one line of the road, the other line was free, some cars were even facing the wrong side of the road, what was the rationale behind that? What happened to all the people that were supposed to be stuck in that traffic? There should have been mayhem, that scene should have been chaotic but it was all so quiet and apart from 2 vehicles where there were people and the lady that was making a live video, the other vehicles were miraculously empty. It affected that scene, it did not look real at all.
Another thing that was not realistic was how the SWAT team met them at 3rd mainland bridge. From the other scene we watched, we saw that the Ojuju boys were always fast at the robbery scenes, they even timed themselves during operations. As at the time the final robbery started on 3rd mainland bridge, Wale was typing his resignation letter at his desk in the office, so how is it possible that the SWAT team left their office in Yaba, drove all the way to third mainland bridge (even though there was supposed to be mad traffic) and still met them there? How??
Moving on, are they trying to tell us that after Izra escaped that gruesome robbery scene, he was able to go home while carrying all that cash, get a haircut, change to a satin shirt then carry the sack of money and head out to their rendezvous point? Ok o, I won’t say anything
How did Akin escape? Did a fisherman help him? Is he a mami water? Did he swim the distance?? Tell us these things na!
Let’s even assume he is an excellent swimmer and he somehow swam the length of third mainland bridge even though he was wounded, did he go back home to get a gun and change his clothes?(because he did not have the gun when he fell into the water, also, he was wearing a black top when he fell into the water but in the scene where he shot Izra, he was wearing a brown top).
In that scene where he shot Izra, one thing that really surprised me was the fact that the gunshot wound on his chest disappeared, how? We all saw the point where Simon shot him so I did not understand why there was no wound on his chest and why there was blood dripping from his arm instead. Did they forget where the injury was supposed to be or was that another injury?
Overall, Brotherhood was not a bad watch. Despite the above stated issues, the movie still manages to entertain you thanks to a decent storyline, fine performances from its cast and great production quality.
Rating: 7.5/10
Have you seen it? Do you agree with this review? Share your feedback in the comments section below.
Read the review of Gangs of Lagos here
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