Akunne

There’s a special appeal to old nollywood type movies that are made with new nollywood techniques. That’s when they take a story that if done 15 years ago would include 2-3 parts, multiple unnecessary scenes, a soundtrack that tells you the story line, a video that makes 144p look like HD and they switch it up. It’s compressed to one part (albeit 2.5hrs long), the extra scenes are cut off and the production quality is improved. It’s the tush version of the nollywood we know and love.

Akunne tells the story of Aku (Mary Igwe), the only child of a sick widower. She struggles everyday for her family’s upkeep and one day more struggles are added to her plate when her dad’s creditor (Patience Ozokwor) comes knocking. The creditor takes the case to the Igwe and the Igwe sentences Akunne to working on Mama G’s farm until she is able to either pay it off or win the Igwe’s scholarship. However, things fall apart when the Igwe passes on. The prince (Ben Lugo Touitou) enters the scene and things begin to change in her life.

There’s no spoiler alerts necessary. You already know how this one ends. The beauty of this is the storyline. It’s that familiar old nollywood tug that we know and love, and it’s long enough a movie for you to truly get to know it and truly get to love it at 148mins. The movie does better than many in cutting unnecessary scenes but yet the ones that show up in the final result are one too many. It’s not a movie that demands your attention. You can literally go around your house doing other things while the movie plays in the background and you would still get the same effect as someone who sat through it with dedication.

Our leads, Igwe and Touitou, were something to watch. The chemistry was by no means magnetic, in fact by the time Prince Aku was saying “I love you”, I was saying “already?”. However, you get to love their love because you had spent all this time watching Akunne’s character get beat up by the antagonist that you are just about ready for any good thing to happen in her life. So even if that means a Prince that she just met 2 scenes ago is suddenly in love with her, that’s fine too. As leads, Igwe and Touitou do well enough but that’s about it. There is ample room for growth on both ends (especially on the end of Touitou’s American accent) but they do not do bad enough that the movie suffers.

The supporting cast in this movie is also about the same. With the exception of Patience Ozokwor and the actress who plays her daughter as well as the actress who plays Nneka, everyone else coasts along and does just enough for the movie to survive and not well enough for much else. I will however mention the character of Chike. Chike is the character of the head palace guard, played by Stan Igboanugu. The jury is still out on why his presence was so striking (and don’t come at me with any arguments that it was because he wasn’t wearing a shirt the whole movie). He had very few lines but the few that he did commanded a strong presence. It was the sort of presence that makes us want to see what other movies he is in and watch that too.

The production quality here was not without its flaws. There were scenes with poor lighting, scenes with bad positioning, scenes with awful audio and what have you. In the end though, none of these flaws detract from the simplistic joy of watching Akunne, as it was a throwback to a simpler nollywood. Plus it had Mama G! And even the crew of #TWP2 knew that everything is better with Mama G.