Master Shot Films Productions, Uche Alexmoore Films presents Frederick Leonard (Richard), Onyi Alex (Ivory), Tochi Obika (Bobby), May Ann Obika (Mira). Screenplay, Chinonso Onuoha; Director of Photography, Isaiah Ogunnowo; Director/ Producer, Uche Alexmoore. © 2024.
“It takes two to tango,” they say. The characters in Two to Tango are straight from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We all remember those secondary school literature series, Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Tom Brown’s School Days, in our syllabuses in those days. I wonder if they still prescribe these age-old classics in schools today. Tom Brown’s School Days hits so close to home, and this has nothing to do with the story of the two scammers; it is just a reminisce of my secondary school days. Like in Tom Brown’s School Days, I fought the one-time physical fight I have ever had with a bully right outside the schoolyard, with all the students circling us and yelling, “Hit him! Hit him!” As the bully and I wrestled in the dust. In Two to Tango, two characters are likable to characters in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: the two con artists, the Duke, and the Dauphin, who pretend to be European royalty–the Duke of Bridgewater and the son of King Louis XVI. Both lie for a living.
A fine young lady, (Onyii Alex), sits outside an office building, ranting at her–said– car mechanic on the phone:
“You know what? You’re crazy….”
Richard (Frederick Leonard) wanders by her.
“… You picked my SUV; bring my car back to me. Rubbish!”
Richard, “Is everything okay, Ma’am?”
Ivory looked at Richard insolently from foot to head and back while on the phone with a customer who wanted to buy her expensive fifteen million Naira jewelry (fake). Richard was impressed. This must be one of those… he internalized, feeling that the honorable rich lady was stranded.
“Hey, I have a proposition for you.”
“What’s that?”
“Be your driver for the day. Wherever you want to go.”
She quips. “I don’t even know you.”
“I don’t know you too.”
Ivory, too, in her mind, has caught a premium fish, as she would boast to her housemate.
Ivory to her mate, “Madam, you see this life; you have to fake it.”
Mate, “But Babe, this thing wey you de do. What thing you gonna do when madam (Boss lady) comes?”
Ivory. “Babe, rest.”
Richard boasts to a yard friend of his latest acquaintance –a new girl, a new trophy– he had found in town as he dusts his Orga’s (Boss Man) black SUV:
After gladly mimicking the award-winning song “How Much is Money” with his yard friend, Richard said, “That girl is my answered prayer from God. That girl is wife material…she has cars and her own business…Any power wey de separate us. Fire!” And he thereafter goes on a spending spree with his Orga’s money, which he’s not supposed to use on a girlfriend he calls, “God answered prayer.”
Yard friend, thoughtful, “When the Orga (Boss Man) will return, what you gonna do?”
Dear readers, this is the juncture we are in the company of two con artists; Chinonso Onuoaha, the writer, presents for us. And she does it so well that you will be enthused. As aforementioned, the Duke and Dauphin in the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Richard, and Ivory, are both cons living on the glory of other peoples–fake lives. I did that once myself. I borrowed, not quite the word, though, but I wore my sister Patricia Entin’s boyfriend’s jacket to meet a beautiful girl in Wellington, Freetown, once; Mr. Saffa Wuya passed on now. The girl was impressed with me having Mr. Saffa Wuya’s beautiful coat, which he had brought home from London, on my romantic first date, and the girl took me in high esteem. I won the day with her. So are our two fake characters, living comfortably on the lives and achievements of Madam and Boss man. From this point on, when they have halfway achieved their goals (fallen in love with each other based on a false life), the story takes us to the point where everything starts to fall apart at the seams. Hilarious! Get a snack and a drink from the icebox, follow Richard and Ivory, and be ready to laugh out loud along with me.
Then the worst happens, like a break of a dam. Our (Duke and Dauphin) Richard and Ivory are thrown out of their bliss and onto the street by Madam and Orga. One characteristic of the two that bears similarities with Duke and Dauphin in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is that they are both unapologetic and remorseless. They understand each other’s weaknesses (liars) and bear with themselves. You hear Richard say, “That girl is a faker, now.” And she, too, would call Richard “Yahoo, Yahoo.” Richard had nowhere to go; his yard mate couldn’t let him use his couch, afraid he may have his wife exposed to another man on their living room couch. Richard is backed into a corner. So, he must drag his suitcase to Ivory’s scant apartment. The one thing that cements their beleaguered relationship is that Ivory conceives a baby. She gets pregnant, and Richard welcomes it. When you think you’ve figured out their story, unexpected twists keep you on the edge of your seat, intrigued and eager for more.
“Me and you, we need to get real.” Richard drops the philosophic adage to come down to brass tacks—enough of myself running my mouth (no spoilers). Watch Two to Tango, revel in the behaviors of two scammers weathering life in the Lagos landscape, and laugh all you can. Many instances in this movie got me rolled out of my couch. Still, they let me mention a few: a) a scene when Ivory is about to pull a scam, and Richard walks up on her and bursts her (bubble) mojo; then two: b) the reconciliatory scene when Richard, having nowhere to go and afraid of being homeless, drags his luggage to Ivory’s pad. You don’t want to look at the face of a defeated Richard, a con artist.
There is an ingenuity in writing comedy but calling it so loudly will kill the fun of it all. Check out Neil Simon’s Odd Couples (1968), for instance. The two leading characters, Jack Lemmon (Felix) and Walter Matthau (Oscar), a mismatch characters of a different kind and you put them into the same room. They are extreme in whatever they believe and do, and the circumstances of their living together are so natural and interactive, driving each other crazy and getting us laughing at their follies. That is a cute way to approach comedy; trust me, Chinonso hit it right on the head by uncannily manufacturing characters from the same stock with different approach to one another. She naturally put Richard and Ivory together seamlessly. Their interaction made me laugh nonstop. This is a notable romantic comedy to take note of. I’ve never been patient enough to follow Frederick Leonard’s many productions. As I said, episode movies and Leonard’s projects are open-ended and never bothered with. But this Two to Tango takes me on. Onyii hasn’t been in Nollywood for long, but I bet my bottom dollar her 3 Some (2011) and Beautiful Liar (2022) couldn’t match her performance in Two to Tango. Every bit of the way, I imagine her acting is a carbon copy of Rita Dominic. She’s etching her place with her name on it on the Nollywood Walk of fame.