Greoh Media, Filmone, Empire Mates Entertainment, and Jungle Filmworks present Adesua Etomi-Wellington (Susie Sugar), Bisola Aiyeola (Sola Sugar), Bimbo Ademoye (Bola Sugar), Tobi Bakre (Andy), Mawule Gavor (Dan), Williams Uchemba (Obum), Banky W (Anikulapo), Omoni Oboli (Mrs. Madueke), Adedemeji Lateef (Kpala), Jide Kosoko (Chief Douglas). Co-producer, Abimbola Craig; Associate Producers, Matilda Ogunleye, Adim Isiakpona; Screenwriters, Bunmi Ajakaye, Jade Osiberu; Director, Kayode Kasum; Story by, Jade Osibere; Director of Photography, Femi Awojide; Producers, Jade Osibere et al. © 2019.
I’m not diabetic; God is good; no sugar rush. I met a man in a store once, who almost passed out because of his low blood sugar and needed to eat something, anything sugar at that moment to give him a quick blood sugar boost. He put a handful of candies in his mouth, chew it, and in another moment, he was okay. That brings me to Sugar Rush, the movie. The writers’ script conjures up a type A diabetic patient kind of drama that needed a constant string of insulin shots, which keeps the story moving at a heady wine speed. Sugar Rush needed four shots a day to survive.
Sola Sugar (Bisola Aiyeola), and Susie Sugar (Adesua Etomi-Wellington), are sisters, and high-grade city slickers who survive by their wits. They are separately invited to a private party by Chief Douglas (Jide Kosoko), at his house. To gain access to his home, he gave each a passcode. Instead of an illuminated home with securities all over the grounds, the home was as dark as Erebus. The two sisters wade through and bumped into each other in the living room, and like a well-rehearsed and synchronized line, they both yelled, “What are you doing here? What are you doing here?” to each other.
It is a surprise to both sisters to meet in Chief Douglas home together, but it was as much a shock for the bodies they found sprawled on the floors, all bloodied and dead in the living room. By their camera flashlight, a trail of blood leads to a duffle bag halfway tucked under the bed. Upon hauling the bag out and opening it, they discover almost a crispy million dollars in it.
The almost million dollars in the duffle bag is a windfall for the two sisters-finders keepers! At their house, they share the findings with Bola Sugar (Bimbo Ademoye), another sister. Imagine, three sisters who can hardly have food on a table, and wake up with almost a crispy million dollars. They all went uncontrollably crazy and go on a spending spree about town; bought them a mansion, and threw a big housewarming party. Susie and Sola’s images appeared in the EFCC surveillance camera, set on to spy on Chief Douglas home. EFCC, officers follow the girls to their house, but Sola’s friend had stolen the money from the hiding place and gone before EFCC went on the search; they promised, however, the case wasn’t over. The excitement about the newfound wealth is wearing off.
Knight (Uzor Arukwe), a crime boss with a squad of goons, appears in the living room of the Sugar girls, demanding the return of his money, as he claims to be the rightful owner. It is another shot of insulin into the story that jolted my low expectations to a higher level. Knight is about to kill all of the sisters, including their mother if he doesn’t recover his money. And as a matter of showing seriousness, he takes their mother as a hostage and promises to kill her if he doesn’t get his money in four days.
Sola hadn’t listened to Susie’s warning not to let Andy (Tobi Bakre) come close to her. Andy saw Sola keeping the duffle bag in the ceiling, and he had taken it from the hideout and left. The funniest part of this movie is when the Sugar sisters went after Andy, all running through alleys, jumping over traditional revelers, over Muslim praying congregation until finally, he passed the bag to another mysterious fellow on an okada, and he Andy, got hit by a van.
Meanwhile, the two officers, Dan (Mawule Gavor) and Obum (William Uchemba), are in a hot seat over the disappearance of the information they gathered. There’s a saboteur in the EFCC office. Mrs. Maduekeh (Omoni Oboli) gives Dan and Obum one week to find the girls and recover the money. Knight, too is giving the Sugar sisters four days to recover his money. The two plots introduce us to new forms of a rush. An adrenalin form of a rush! Dan and Obum tasered the sisters and took them under investigation, but couldn’t come up with anything of essence about the case. And they let them go.
When Dan and Obum release them, other masked men waylaid, chloroformed, and took them away to Gina (Toke Makinwa), another claimant to Chief Douglas money. Of course, she claims to be the daughter of Chief. Gina is not so concerned about the stolen one million dollars from Chief Douglas, who she dismisses as a greedy bastard who deserves to die; she wants the Sugar sisters to help her take a bigger loot from the most fearing character, Anikulapo (Banky Wellington). Susie agrees. In a clever move, Susie recruits Dan and Obum to join the enterprise, and in the process, writers presented to us the moment of truth in the story.
Susie, “Corruption is a game we all play.”
Dan, “Are you going to be part of that corruption or the solution?”
Susie, “You are incredibly naïve. And that’s the worst thing you can be if you work for the Nigerian government; before you know it, you will be charged with crimes you did not commit and sent to prison by the people that actually committed the crime.”
Dan, “Is that what you think happened to your father?”
Susie, “What do you know about my father?”
Dan, (beat) “Frederick Sugar, born Fredick Babalola Sugar, 1953. The mastermind behind the third-largest loot in Nigerian history. Impersonated a CBN governor, convinced German bank to invest in a fictitious airport in Abuja…”
Susie, “Well, he didn’t do it. My father was just as naïve as you, thinking he could change this country. It was Anikolapo’s father who sets him up.”
Dan, “So, this is personal for you, then?”
Susie, “It is beyond personal. It is my wildest dream.”
There is a confrontation, and all players concerned with the money gathered at the grassy beach. The last incident with Anikulapo (Banky Wellington) was fabulous: Anikulapo, Mrs. Maduekeh, Gina, and Knight, are all present with their goons and their guns drawn. Gunshots exchanged between the gangs, and in the end, the Sugar sisters and Dan and Obum survived and made away with the loot. All the jittering, the shivering, the panic attack over who’s going to survive the shoot out went away when I saw the Sugar girls and Dan and Obum got in a van to get away someplace.
Two important observations about this movie I should make. I commented once about the 400,000 extras a production used in the funeral scene of Gandhi. I am impressed with Sugar Rush’s use of 197 registered and credited extras on its set. That’s a fit I never saw in Nollywood, and not quite Chief Daddy pulled such crowd. Excuse me if I’m wrong. Then too, it beats me that Adesua Etomi and her hobby Banky Wellington performed in this movie as protagonist and antagonist. Another occurrence I have never experienced in Nollywood films where husband and wife, in real life, play together.
In the moment of truth in the story, we learn about the Sugar girls’ father, Frederick Sugar, and his relationship with Anikolapo’s father. Such was the backdrop history and bitterness between the two families-Sugar versus Anikolapo, in this story, that created motivation for Susie to get on a warpath with the younger and the all-terrible Anikolapo. The story would have introduced us to the plot earlier. It didn’t have to take us North before coming down to South. In earnest, Susie’s dream wasn’t as wildest as she confessed to Dan. She stumbled on it. Then too, who could have suspected that of Mrs. Madueke to be a conspirator in the criminal gang that killed Chief Douglas. After all, Susie is right about the Nigerian establishment.
The story structure, however, impresses me up to the point of the Climax, but not the outcome, even as it doled out insulin after insulin plots and actions that kept jolting me through the narrative. There were the scenes with Andy, funny as they come; the scene with Knight, scary as it could be; and Gina, who is ready to fry the Sugar sisters in a hot tub-heart throbbing and finger biting. Yet in the obligatory scene or denouement disappointed me a bit. The character of Anikulapo presents a fire-eating, cornflakes-eating in a human skull, with who no one wants to fool. He demonstrated, so when bullets rained directly on him, cracked off his gown like popcorns. The writers must have used a logical means of ending the story. To me, the escape of the Sugar sisters and Anikulapo’s opening of the boxes is illogical. We needed not magical effects to pull this stunt with the old red car. Where’s Anikulapo’s weakness? Isn’t he human? Does it mean we only have Goliath and no David? Doesn’t Anikolapo have Achilles heel?