Closer Pictures and Mazzini Pictures present Bimbo Ademoye (Moji), Uzor Arukwe (Lucky), Ose Inebenobor (Laura), Moc Madu (Festus), Pascaline Alex (Philo), and Victory Emuejekaro (Chief). Story, Nwobodo; Executive Producer, Closer Pictures, Mazzini Pictures; Producer, Onyinye Udezeh; Director, Stanley Obi; Director of Photography, Ogbonna Chukwuemeka. © 2023.
The first time I discovered Uzo Arukwe was when I reviewed In Line (2017), which is currently trending on Netflix. He was the fall guy in the movie. He had killed his father when the older man beat his mother out of jealous rage and spent six years in prison. His thriving advertising business had continued to operate in his absence, thanks to his wife. But like they say, absence makes the heart fonder. Kate (Adesua Etomi), his wife, the Nollywood dame, the lady with a long nose and small face, had taken another life and a boyfriend, in disregard to her fidelity to Debo. Debo Devi (Uzo Arukwe), like Okonkwo’s return to Umuofia after his expulsion, could no longer fit in with the company that once respected and adored him; instead, he was looked upon as either an outcast, a murderer, or a jailbird. Imagine such labels in the African community.
I hate when my beloved actor, Lucky (Uzor Arukwe), must go through similar conditions in Unlucky. A certified NYSC post-graduate, for six years, couldn’t procure a job. His best college friend, with whom he had shared a single bedroom, sends him parking because, since graduation, he has never secured a job anywhere. Was living a life of hard times in the Lagos terrain. At this point in his misery, one could assume that Lucky’s village people had followed him all along. Then, as how his luck could have it, Lucky runs into Moji (Bimbo Ademoye), a roadside cookshop owner who helped him with food, and later asked her if he could squatter in her shop for the night. Since he left college, this is his first time running a hustle that pays him as he becomes Moji’s help in the shop.
Without much ado, Moji discovers the need for a partner, whether for business or bed. Soon, she takes Lucky home to share a one-bedroom with him. But when a friend tells her, “If I have such a handsome man, he’ll be servicing me every night,” Moji volunteers and pays off the debtor back in his village, who wants to claim his only family farm that was bonded to secure his college fee. After some make-up and a show of care for him, Lucky’s life changes for the better. The next level in his life came when, through Festus (Moc Madu), a close friend, landed him the job of his dreams as an engineer for a notable company, with a quaint uptown apartment, a company car, and an expensive wardrobe befitting his executive position.
When we have heard the phrase too good to be true, the situation with Lucky is a perfect example. During the interview, his employer, Laura (Ose Inebenobor), had asked Lucky if he had any experience. Figuratively, she was asking about the experience of being used for a job. His immediate employer wants him to go to bed. He didn’t know the job comes with a caviar for the boss lady. Lucky abandons Moji for the newfound opportunity. He abandons Moji, absconded, with no forwarding address or telephone. Moji at first couldn’t understand, but after a month, she consulted a good friend of hers and tracked Lucky in the household of his boss lady.
When his friend Festus once warned Lucky about how lovely and humble Moji is and that he should take good care of her because such women hardly come by, he approaches him again about his present relationship with Moji. Lucky, in his present glory, is self-righteous and brags about being beyond the level of Moji. He is on top of the world right now. He is rushing to be Odogwu in Lagos.
Men are at sometimes, masters of their fates
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings
What little feelings I can muster for Lucky is that he suffers a lot before he can get a breath of air. A fresh air that could be interpreted into his self being. Imagine that he has always compared his low status to that of his schoolmates, who are all doing well. He wants to be like them so badly that he forgets how he eventually ends. Not the friend who gave him the idea of getting the job, nor Moji, who opened her canteen for him to sleep in out of the street. No, not Moji, who paid off his college loan in the village, nor the one who gave him the first shoe to wear on his first day to work and walk into his temporary glory.
The fault, dear readers, is not in the stars of Lucky, but as in Lucky himself and the choices he makes, and I can’t accept better character title the writer gave him–Unlucky. He isn’t made to help himself out of his financial situation. Moji is the best thing that could happen to any man in his disposition, but instead, he is quick to discard the goodness in her for Laura, who he claims is his gateway to a better life. In other words, Lucky is a born loser. He never appreciates the good gracious Moji who helps quickly turn his life into something. When Laura shows him the flowery side of life, he blocks everybody, including old friends and Moji, out of his life. In essence, and in referring to Shakespeare’s quotation above about humankind, destiny is not predetermined but shaped by our choices.
The choices Lucky makes determine his well-being in life. One might ask why Lucky never listened to Festus’s advice about love and respect for Moji. Festus, in turn, marries Moji, puts her in school, and gets her pregnant. Moji, who washes his car in the morning before going to work, has his breakfast ready, and then rewashes his car when he comes home from work—begging on her knees for Lucky to go home, to cook him his choice food, to give him hot bath water. Yet, what he felt for Moji was more gratitude than affection. At last, she got someone who cared for her. Success in life isn’t in Lucky’s stars. The previous statement Moji makes as Lucky is eating the food her restaurant offers him during her final exit: “Eat the food you came to this world to eat.”
Uzor Arukwe is among the new crop of talents mushrooming all over Nollywood. I recently saw Uzor’s interview with a YouTube personality, and he was discussing, among other things, the period in his career when he almost went back into the closet and dusted off his school certificate to return to his academic career because there was a dearth of calls on his phone for movie parts. In the decade, however, since his appearance in In Line, the most notable film to my knowledge, he has garnered over fifteen feature film credits in leading roles, including Sergeant Tutu (2017), Devil in Agbada (2021), and the list continues. I believe Uzor and Bimbo have unbelievable on-screen chemistry, considering their roles in Deep State (2023), The Recipient (2022), and now Unlucky.