This movie tells the story of a group of strangers traveling to Enugu, who decided to get a cheap ride (known as Soole in Yoruba) as opposed to boarding a bus from the park.
Let me give a brief summary: A woman visits the park to send a traveling bag (let’s call it bag A) through a bus to Enugu. In order to save time, the bus driver decides to leave the park and pick passengers on the way at a cheaper rate (Soole). He picks different passengers on his way, including a young lady named Justina. Justina had a traveling bag similar to the one that the strange woman at the beginning gave to the driver (let’s call it bag B). Thieves stop their bus and mistakenly carried bag B but apparently they were supposed to steal bag A. After several unfortunate incidences and attempts by other people to steal bag A from the bus, the passengers decided to open it. To their surprise, they discovered that it was filled with a lot of money, dollars to be precise.
The story had potential but as is typical of Kayode Kasum’s films (for example Kambili, Suga Rush, Quam’s money & Fate of Alakada), the potential was buried under his bottomless pit of desperate and dead humor, unrealistic twists, astonishing errors and uninspiring characters.
Let’s talk about casting and acting. We had top actors like Sola Sobowale and Femi Jacobs as well as some other upcoming acts.
For the new guys, some of them tried e. g Mego Tanwa, Adunni Ade.
Some were annoying, e.g Odera Orji and Teniola Aladese. For Teniola, In the bid to look like a tough police officer, she squeezed her face all through the movie, so her cheeks looked swollen. Swollen cheeks plus her oily face, she ended up looking constipated, I could not even take her seriously.
We also had some performances that were just stale e.g Eso Dike and Olaide Adeyiga, i still don’t know why they were in the movie.
Asides from the poor acting, this movie was plagued by paper thin characterization. In this bus, we saw a virgin who sells sex toys, a professor who is actually a spiritualist, a popular kidnapper, 2 police officers in disguise, a malam with swords and so many other dynamic characters. I wondered why so many of them where in the bus, what were they going to do in Enugu? We should have gotten to know the main characters properly. Instead for the first 40minutes, we just watched them shout, argue, curse and throw fists at one another over and over again.
As the movie progressed, I noticed several loopholes. One minute we were still trying to wrap our heads around their poor attempt at comedy, the next minute we were watching a Jet- Li production. They were trying to do too much but in the end, everything just looked scattered.
So many questions were unanswered. Who is the woman who took the traveling bag to the park? Did she know the money would get stolen? She did not even bother to get the the driver’s number or the bus details in order to follow up. Who is the real owner of the money? Who sends a bag filled with dollars through a bus from Lagos to Enugu? How does that even make any sense? Anybody who has that much money does not even have any business at a bus park. How did the thieves know about the money? Why did the story shift from a simple robbery to kidnapping and child trafficking? These and many more questions were on my mind while I watched. I won’t even try to explain their attempts at shooting and fighting because it was embarrassing.
I could go on and on but I wouldn’t want to bore you. I must however let you know that the last few scenes of this movie were the most painful and annoying parts for me. Let me give you 2 examples:
1. Sister Veronica (played by Adunni Ade) was eventually kidnapped by Sola Sobowale. She was taken to a baby making factory where young ladies had to sell their babies to the highest bidder. When they got there, Sister Veronica offered to help with the delivery of one of the babies. A lot was however going on at that time, so after the delivery, Veronica tried to escape with the new mother and her baby. Can you believe that even though Veronica did not have the time or facilities to clean up there was no single blood or slime on her hands or clothes from the delivery? To make matters worse, she was wearing a nun’s habit and not even the white part had a spec of blood. Did they deliver fire wood or a baby?
2. After everything, they showed us 11 months later. The bus driver who had been shot in the bush 11 months ago suddenly woke up. How?????? They wanted us to believe that he tied some of the dollars to his waist, so when he was shot, the bundles of money stopped the bullet from entering his body, thus saving his life. My question is why did it take him 11 months to wake up???? I was shocked and offended by how silly that last scene was, I strongly believe it was an editing glitch.
Like I always say, it’s the tiny details for me. All I know is that Adunniade might need to refund me.
This movie left a very bad taste in my mouth, I really think Kayode Kasum needs to aim higher than threadbare humor and lame attempts at martial arts in his movies. From the beginning to the end, Soole the movie was an illogical mess.
Rating: 3.5/10
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