Synopsis: Ajoke is a prophetess who made a prediction about an upcoming football match. Her prediction creates a lot of chaos and has the potential to cause even more damage if it turns out to be wrong. Prophetess Ajoke and those around her must do all it takes to ensure her prediction comes to pass.
The movie did not start well, it was loud and all over the place. Based on the synopsis, I was already mentally prepared for a story about charlatans but instead, for the first few minutes it seemed like I was watching an audition for characters with speech deficiency. The prophetess and her 2 assistants had something going on with their speech. While the reason behind Ajoke’s own became clear as the movie progressed, there was no reason why her assistants had to speak like that.
Anyway, to my utmost surprise things settled o and it started making sense.
The storyline was not bad and considering the peculiarities of our deeply religious society, it was quite relatable. Plot progression was coherent.
Let’s talk about acting and casting. If we ignore Adedimeji Lateef and Blessing Obasi, we can say that the actors in this movie delivered. From Toyin to Deyemi Okanlawon, Uzor Arukwe, Stan Nze and Kunle Remi to mention a few, they all did well.
Special accolades to Kehinde Bankole. She played the role of Labake, a semi illiterate who was also prophetess Ajoke’s sister. She delivered. She did not struggle to fit in with the character, she became one with it. I was actually very proud of her performance!
The main problem with those 2 people earlier mentioned was with the way they were speaking. Lateef has this accent he uses and I’m afraid it has become rinse and repeat for him. He is too talented to allow Nollywood turn him to a joke, he really needs to reserve that accent for his IG reels/skits. As for Blessing Obasi, whenever she speaks like that, it gives “imbecile” and let’s not forget the fact that she slips out of character a lot and her mannerisms are always exaggerated. But it’ll be unfair to put all the blame on them, someone was responsible for creating those characters. That person is to be blamed.
I liked the movie setting, I liked the props, the makeup, their outfits, everything looked very authentic. They were able to accurately capture the class of people being described in the movie. The football scene was a big plus, the stadium was really full and they were able to recreate that vibrant atmosphere typical of Nigerians when watching a football match. Let’s not forget the tiny details they included which made the scenes more real. For example, the thugs fighting , the ones pulling their shirts, the woman praying with her Bible at the stadium, the men listening from their portable radio.
I liked the themes they addressed. The movie tried to show the ugly reality of Nigeria, a country that abandons her heros and does nothing to build up or encourage young talents. It tried to show the obsession with religious leaders and how poverty has made betting a last resort to escape poverty. It described family bond. Inspite all Ajoke did, her mother still embraced her and tried to beg Labake to forgive her. Are you even an elder sibling if your mummy has not tried to blackmail you to do something for your younger one by kneeling down for you or shedding tears? They were able to create scenes that we could identify with.
But there were issues:
- First, It was not funny. Some parts were emotional and all but for the comedy, i did not see it.
- The young Labake ,Ajoke and even their mother, looked nothing like their older versions.
- This movie was set in a rural community in Ibadan and not one of them spoke with that thick Ibadan accent. This should have been Lateef and Blessing’s brief but instead someone thought it was ok for them to try to sound Igbo.
- We only saw Remi Surutu (she played the role of Dipo’s mother) once at the beginning and suddenly she just disappeared.
- How did Labake kidnap Fogo’s girlfriend?. Even if they were able to kidnap Fogo’s girlfriend, it seemed implausible that he would have been intimidated by that fact and he would just have allowed Labake threaten him that easily.
- The movie touched on Epilepsy but lost the opportunity to do anything remarkable with it. Does whiskey help to manage the systems of epilepsy? I guess we’ll never know.
- The police attacked Ajoke’s church, who called them?
- Finally, if you watch Hollywood movies ehn you will know that the part of the story where the football team is loosing the game and a savior runs in last minute to save the day is their thing. So this story almost seems like copying but they made it work sha.
Continuity issues was also a thing in this movie. There was a scene where a mob was pursuing prophetess Ajoke then it suddenly started raining, her assistants stopped to address the mob in the rain but in that same scene while they were still talking, it was not raining again. They resumed the rat race but when we see the mob again,these people’s clothes looked very dry. I was just like warris going on????
Another error I noticed ehn, at the radio station, Dipo’s colleague showed him images of how the police scattered prophetess Ajoke’s church in Ibadan but we could see Dipo’s car in the picture. They forgot to move the car before taking the pictures because since Dipo was not there when the police raid happened, it was impossible for his car to be there. Turns out that image was from a later scene in the movie (check our stories for picture evidence)
But all that being said, they were able to build dramatic momentum, we were actually looking forward to the football match and the eventual victory was nice to see.
I liked the end because Nigerians and coconut head ehn 🤝🤝🤝
We never learn and that is why fake pastors thrive everyday.
Overall, it was not a bad one. I had zero expectations for this one but I was pleasantly surprised.
Rating: 5.5/10
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