Studio 6 Multimedia Ltd., Gabriel Afolayan Films presents Gabriel Afolayan (Chuwkwu), Ebun Olayede (Kamoru), Jide Kosoko (Circle man), Adunni Ade (Amoke, Paraga Seller), Nobert Young, Muyiwa Adegoka, Toyosi Adesanya (Canteen Woman), Gloria Anozie (Mama), Ogundairo Foloruns (Vulcanizer), Bode Jolaoso (Tout), Jumoke George, Tina Mba, Ivie Okujaye, Wole Ojo, Moji Afolayan, Olayiwola Screenplay, Bukola Awoyemi, Abibat S. Ayinde, Biodun Jimoh, Gabriel Afolayan; Producers, Gabriel Afolayan, Harrison Abgoifoh; Cinematography, David Wyte. © 2022
Even as a water-down claim, a title used all over the world by movie houses, from Hollywood to Bollywood, and now Nollywood. The Nollywood version must have a story to tell close to the writers’ and producers’ hearts. At first, glance, it may not seem like anything or a story worth watching. I thought so too. A trip from Lagos to Ibadan by two strange men, one older and another younger may not mean much. I may implore you though, that this movie needs a man or viewer who can take a steely mental exercise to delve beyond the outer skin of what Afolayan and his group of collaborators are trying to say.
Imagine a car-loader wakes Kamoru (Ebun Olayede) from his daydream, as he sits on top of the bonnet of his taxi, to give him a young passenger, for a long road trip to Ibadan. He had sneaked out of his one-bedroom while his wife slept––he thought––his children all sprawled on the floor, fighting to pull through his big head in his lapel shirt. Once outside, his wife came running behind him yelling at M.O.S. Assumingly he had not left chop money for his family.
There is not much juice to stories of this nature without including incidents along the way. The writers throw incidents in their way to make the story controversial, complicated, and worthy of viewing. For instance, stories where a farmer must fight nature to maintain his crops, the farmer who fights droughts––The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019)
The young passenger in a coat suit and carrying a briefcase gave the driver an advance fare and lodged comfortably in the sedan’s passenger seat, still holding firmly, the briefcase on his lap. The younger passenger opens the briefcase, and we see a pistol which he at one point points towards the driver. This is indicative of the passenger that he must either be a paid assassin or a gangster en route to commit a crime.
The trip to Ibadan starts:
Driver and passenger exchange peripheral introduction of each other: Mr. Kamoru, a Yoruba and young Chukwu as an Igbo making a hasty trip to Ibadan, the reason for the trip not made clear in the story. No sooner had the taxi left town, than the car ran out of fuel. Chukwu is fussing, swearing his rotten luck, and in the end, pushes the car to the nearest fuel station. On the trip’s second leg, Mr. Kamoru had a road rage with a van and the incident almost caused Chukwu, a heart attack. On the third leg of the trip, they had to stop by the roadside to eat.
They stop afterward for Chukwu to attend to the nature call. During his absence from the scene, we sense Mr. Kamoru also had devilish intentions to use the young passenger for a ritual to get rich, but he never got himself to apply the gourd wrapped in the red cloth on Chukwu’s chest. To this point in the drama, one could assume both passenger and driver were separately up to bad things. When Chukwu could quote Quranic and Biblical verses to Mr. Kamoru first in Arabic, then in indigenous Yoruba, Kamo prostrates himself in the grass by the roadside (mojuba) and asks for forgiveness, for all he had been saying to Chukwu in Yoruba. “Your type of person is rare.” He asserts. This is a moment of truth in the story. Mr. Kamoru and his passenger are both indigenous Yoruba and therefore share common leanage and understanding.
Both passenger and driver forge a camaraderie after this scene. Kamo opens up by telling his life story to Chukwu in a nutshell: the flowery funeral his children would throw upon his death; the food, the crowd, and all. But when Chukwu tells him the truth of the matter of bringing up children not properly cultivated (education-wise), the children will not be in a position for such respectful funerals. Mr. Kamoru sees the bleak future of his life in bringing up uneducated and uncared-for children. He bursts out hysterically crying as his life’s statement is all in front of him.
Chukwu too has a problem: He had embarked on this trip with a gun in his briefcase, even pointing it at Mr. Kamoru as if he was the target. I assume him a gangster or on a trip to commit a crime somewhere, yet he is a graduate going on to eight years with no job, and he has siblings whom he cares for since mom and dad have passed. Maybe, Mr. Kamoru is vindicated about the non-essence of education as Chukwu earlier emphasized. The younger passenger too is not so well off.
Here is the human and literary dramatic aspect of the story: The turn of Chukwu and Mr. Kamoru on their way to Ibadan back to where they come from, is symbolic of the turn humans take when their future changes and redirects them to a brighter and shiny one. When they had started on a journey that seemingly had no end, and was as cumbersome as life itself (flat tire, out of gas, farting and all) with no prospect, they found value in each other, at last: Kamo finds this passenger is special, he can’t carry through whatever havoc he had planned; likewise, Chukwu, with his loaded gun in his briefcase.
Then, Mr. Kamoru overhears Chukwu speak French, and that opens a floodgate of a future for both of them. He had met, I mean Mr. Kamoru, a passenger who had given him a business card for future contact, for a job or otherwise, and when Chukwu tells him his background story and responsibility, with eight years of seeking a job, even as qualified as he is, yet with no contact, Mr. Kamoru assumes he can make better use of the card. He gives Chukwu the business card, knowing he has the right education, to acquire a job with the French Embassy since he speaks French. Not only does Chukwu get the job with the French Embassy, but Mr. Kamoru is employed in a lucrative job, as a chauffeur for Chukwu. A journey that starts as unpredictable ends up prospective and prosperous for both passenger and driver.
When Gabriel Afolayan started to be not only an actor but a playwright as well, maybe he just wanted to impress upon the world at large his vision, rather than following the already marked idea of others. He knows he’ll be at the mercy of us the hacks. We the critics, are unforgiven in any little mistakes writers make. What Gabriel is saying here is both poetic and more profound than the average viewer can understand. He has gotten on the road with only a taxi driver, we all may join him on that trip, and ride together to oblivion. I have seen him in most of my reviews: Gone (2021), Citation (2020), Gold Statue (2019), Coming From Insanity (2019), and my favorite, A Lot Like Love (2023), and numerous bit appearances in other movies. He has a stamina one could reckon with in this business. He could be a new sage on the scene once we give him the chance to prove himself, the chance he deserves. U-Turn says so.