007 Global Production in Association with Alumedia Studio, Fikalo Production, Track and Dolly, MAD Production presents, Kehinde Bankole (Affy), Eyinna Nwigwe (Mike), Williams Uchemba (Obiora), Jide Kosoko (MD), Bimbo Ademoye (Tochi), Bimbo Akintola (Anna Duke), Toyin Abraham (Teni The Blogger), Timini Egbuson (Akin), Bianca Ugowanna (Jemila), Ali Nuhu (Khalid), Uzee Usman (Abubakar). Director of Photography, Idowu Adedapo; Producers Jamiu Shoyode, Wale Muraina; Exec. Producers Samuel ‘Bigsam’ Olatunji, Dixon Edward, Tola Elatuyi. Director Samuel ‘Bigsam’ Olatunji. © 2020
Affy (Kehinde Bankole) is a woman who lives her life like it is golden. Fun, fun! “Yari-yari-yari.” Yari- yari-yari, about what? About Affy’s impending wedding with her intended husband, Mike (Eyinna Nwigwe). The expectation is far greater than one could measure. The spot for the Church marriage has been staked out; the reception hall already paid for, the grooms and maids selected and, the asoebe color chosen and ready. So, that’s all the yari-yari talk is about. Affy and her two buddies, Jamila (Bianca Ugowanna), Tochi (Bimbo Ademoye), are all worked up.
Mike is a character who can have his cake and eats it. He can’t entirely trade success for love, for he knows money and success count at the end of the day. Mike’s chance and opportunity in the company are excellent; if only he could get past the overbearing MD (Jide Kosoko), he respects and fears like a father. Here is Mike’s dilemma. He is under the proverbial sword of Damocles: His intended wife, Affy, the overbearing MD, and his cougar, Anna Duke.
Mike had met Affy in an uptown poolroom bar and shared a rapid-fire exchange with each other. It is no coincidence, Mike running into Affy at the gym. At the restaurant, he inadvertently becomes a Waiter for a second, when Affy gives him a bottle of whatever, mistaking him for an attendant. Again, Mike taxies in front of Affy and Jemila (Bianca Ugowanna) stranded in traffic and stops. Whatever gesture he tries to make in this scene is rebuffed. They couldn’t get in his jeep. Mike couldn’t stop but keeps dogging Affy all over town.
At last, he sits across from her in a Sunday Service at her Fellowship. The Pastor asks the Congregants to turn to a neighbor and say: “You are special.” Mike says so to Affy boldly, but Affy could only mumble. Not long, the miss-hard-to-get, Affy accepts Mike’s engagement ring in the foyer of his apartment as a friend blows a saxophone to grace the engagement. I can give you straight; Affy is an independent woman with an independent mind and willpower. At the poolroom bar where they first met, she orders her own drinks. “Can I have a rum and a coke…with a bit of, uh, lime? No ice, please.” She knows her drinks like the type of man she desires in bed.
Affy must be one of those Born Again converts who conjure Holy Ghost fire at Demons in daily prayers; hypocrites they can be. Even when Mike’s libido can flare to his balls, aching to have sex with her, she refuses him to have. She is in love, all right, but couldn’t let Mike have sex with her until he puts a ring on her finger. God knows how long that’s going to take. She has control over herself. But alas, her fault is indulgence in drinking! Maybe I was right after all about her religious persuasion as a ‘Born Again,’ because from time to time they always revert to the old ways of doing things: shameful ways, regretful ways, and sinful ways, and later prostrate themselves sorrowfully at the altar.
Mike has a cougar, Anna Duke (Bimbo Akintola), a wealthy developer, who can spare no dime to have Mike in her bed. She sponsors Mike’s company in all advertisement deals and thereby helps his company stays afloat. Mike’s MD (Jide Kosoko) is aware of this and implores the young man not to mess things up with the cougar. Their financial well-being is on a string with Anna Duke; all he does is to please her in the bedroom. “She paid you your own commission. You see, my forty years in this practice, no client paid that to an inside man unless you did a fantastic and an [sic] outstanding job inside her.”
Mike has to split his time between his demanding Boss, the cougar, and Affy. Cougars can be overzealous in relationships. She has seen Mike not attentive to her romantic gestures that night in her living room because he was busy exchanging texts with Affy. She thought she can outpace whoever Mike was texting with, so Anna Duke starts sending lurid and sexually explicit, and provocative texts to Mike as well. Mike’s phone falls in Affy’s hand, saw the text messages. “You-you lying, cheating scum!” She cries and runs from the living room and locks herself in her bedroom. Affy and her two friends seek advice from a blogger. They have to take Affy to the town to console her. And that’s what they did.
Affy let her guard down, and it is all bottoms up at the club. She gets so drunk and ends in bed with Abubakar (Uzee Usman), and they have sex. She conceives. Now she doesn’t know who got her pregnant but gets on the road to look for the father of her unborn child. She got beat up by a woman when she caught her with her boyfriend sitting in a car. Obiora (William Uchemba) got jumped on by Mike after Affy wrongly nominated him for the pregnancy. Affy decides to keep the pregnancy after all, but the wedding is not taking place, even as she catches the bouquet during Obiora’s marriage. Mike swore to love his cougar because his Boss is telling him their company is going under if they don’t get the support of the cougar. And now that Affy confesses to him about the pregnancy. Mike knows Affy could be kuluku, so he leans on to his cougar.
Jide Kosoko, who yelled, pulled his hair over his underboss; Makinde (Femi Jacobs), was sent to Abuja to procure land. Minister of Land had to sign on to the deal in The Meeting (2012). Jide is not one to mess with. He gives Mike similar pressure here too, a matter of fact, he wants the young man to prostitute himself.
In Cold Feet (2019), Enyinna Nwigwe played, Tare, a man, stuck between two women: His fiance and rekindling a married woman’s love. That was Tare’s dilemma in Cold Feet, here again, he is stuck between Affy, a kuluku, and a cougar.
A critical scene closes this story, and I want to use it to sum up my take on the comic drama. When Affy catches the bouquet at Obiora’s wedding, she turns around, and behind her stand Abubakar and Mike. If this story ever goes soapy, we may see Affy claiming Abubakar over Mike. She has a pregnancy for him and believes that Abubakar has better economic strength than Mike. Hence, she keeps refusing Mike’s gesture that he never mind the baby. If this for the fact, then who is addressing Affy as ‘dear,’ Mike or Abubakar? Please, somebody, help me out here! I haven’t reviewed Kehinde Bakole’s movies since Miss Tawa, October 1 (2014). She’s natural at acting.
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