It was reported in August 2021 that Mo Abudu’s studio, EbonyLife Studios teamed up with Will Packer Productions to develop an action thriller based on the Bloomberg article, “The Fall of Billionaire Gucci Master,” to which the two production companies have acquired the rights.
Plot
The “To Kill A Monkey” movie will be about the notorious Nigerian internet fraudster, Ramon Abass, known by the sobriquet “Hushpuppi.” We don’t know if the two companies are still working together to develop the story, because this new Netflix series, To Kill a Monkey” looks like it was inspired by the Ramon Abass story, albeit loosely. If the story is still in work, then this new series is Mo Abudu’s pet project, while she prepares herself to develop the story of the infamous Hushpuppi.
Story
Efemini is a middle-aged man who lives in stark and abject poverty. He narrates his financial situation at the beginning of the movie. He can’t perform the appropriate funeral rites when his mother dies. And his wife, who just gave birth, can’t produce milk for the babies because she’s severely malnourished. The situations and the people around him constantly remind him of his paucity— his mother-in-law emasculates him with a barrage of insults about his inability to provide and his manager at work, a woman, takes sexual advantage for financial reasons.
But all this is about to change when Oboz-Da-Boz (Bucci Franklin), an internet fraudster, enters the restaurant where Efemini (William Benson) works as a waiter. Both had crossed paths years ago back at the university, when Efemini helped Oboz, a cultist, from being killed by other cultists. Oboz reminds Efemini of the incident after failing to recollect his face. Distraught by the situation in which he finds Efemini, Oboz decides to take him under his wing. However, when Efemini discovers the source of Oboz’s lifestyle, he turns him down. But soon enough, he came back ready to even improve the Oboz’s criminal activities to new heights.
Performances
“To Kill A Monkey” comments on a deeply rooted economic problem that leads Nigerians from a poor economic background to seek other means of survival and livelihood through illegal means even if it means going against innate values and principles. Efemini is a principled individual of value. He kept refusing all sexual advances from his manager, but only cowed when he needed to pay his wife’s hospital bill. His principles and values also got tested after Oboz revealed the source of his wealth. But Efemini only agreed to work with him after initially rejecting his offer when he faced his harsh economic reality.
The first couple of episodes of the series reflect on the traditional and cultural gender roles of the man as the provider and protector of the family, and the emasculation of the man over his inability to provide in society. Efemini couldn’t sleep at home because of the shame he feels as a man unable to provide for his wife. And his mother-in-law made his life a living hell by constantly reminding him that he’s less of a man for failing to provide for his wife.
“To Kill A Monkey” like her “King of Boys” series—Nigeria’s most popular series— is hindered by a storyline that drags itself out. Each episode of the series is approximately one hour, but the time length of some of the episodes is not earned, so they could have been condensed into fewer minutes or fewer episodes.
But no review would be complete without a discussion of Bucci Franklin’s character, Oboz. He’s the larger-than-life type of character who effortlessly steals the show. Bucci Franklin plays the character with explosive aplomb that no character comes close to matching his presence in the series, “To Kill A Monkey”. Perhaps most impressive is that his pidgin is so fluent that I wonder if what I speak as pidgin is nothing but disjointed English.
Stella Damascus and Bimbo Akintola channel raw maternal emotion in their roles as Nosa and Inspector Ogunlesi, respectively. I’ve always seen Bimbo Akintola as a kind of cinematic younger sister to Sola Sobowale, so when Sobowale—who has featured in nearly all of Kemi Adetiba’s recent films—was absent from the cast, I suspected it would fall to Akintola to take on the emotionally intense and weepy female role.
Inspector Ogunlesi suffers a devastating loss when her husband and children die in a car crash. After a period in psychiatric care, she returns to find her former role as superintendent of the Nigerian Cybercrime Commission taken over by her friend, Superintendent Babalola (Ireti Doyle). Though she pours herself into her new work, her investigation into Efemini, a prominent technocrat, is dismissed—largely due to skepticism surrounding her mental health history.
Verdict
With “To Kill A Monkey,” Kemi Adetiba reiterates her status as arguably Nigeria’s best director and writer who can construct an enthralling, and gripping action thriller as she did with “King of Boys” that would be both entertaining and fun to watch for the audience.
Rating:6.5
Had to scroll down to the rating first. Hahahaha. It is encouraging. I haven’t seen the series, but I expect nothing less from Kemi Adetiba. She is one of the few filmmakers who never disappoints when it comes to filmmaking.