Okafor’s Law

You might have heard of this big number Omoni Oboli production last year (2017). Maybe when it was making the waves in our headlines over the jury dispute, or when it was making other waves in the headlines for its festival inclusions. Either way, Okafor’s Law was one that managed to garner a lot of attention wherever it went. But was the hype worth it?

The storyline itself is the story of a guy named Chuks (cornily and cliched-ly nicknamed “the terminator”) and his ploy to convince his two best friends about the existence of Okafor’s Law. What is Okafor’s Law you might ask? Oh, I thought you’d never ask. Whether or not it’s a real thing, in this movie it is the law that states that once a man shags a woman he can shag her again and again… or something like that. Chuks goes about proving this by attempting to reignite flames with three women from his past.

Sound familiar? If you’ve seen any number of movies then you can probably – with very little effort – name at least three other movies with a similar storyline right off the top of your head. So if the originality is not what is going for this movie, then what is?

Great question. Actually this movie does have a few things going for it. The first of which is the brilliant actors. The list here is impressive from Gabriel Afolayan (who was without a doubt the standout performance of this film, especially in his scenes with Mary Lazarus), to Tina Mba and RMD (who I was initially scared was going to be relegated to the role of an accessory but turned out to be just a little bit more in the end) to name a few. It is unfortunate that these brilliant actors don’t have much to do in this film, however, they don’t just dim in the background and laze around on screen (as we’ve seen happen before). Instead, they make the most of each scene they are in and deliver some memorable lines.

Another thing the movie has going for it is the picture and cinematography. There truly were some impressive shots in this movie and hardly any lazy photography in sight. The laziness though was in the dubbing of the audio. It was a little too obvious that much of the audio/dialogues were added on after the fact. Leading to an feeling of the audio lying on top of the finished work.

As far as the storyline goes, it lacks originality for the most part but you already knew that when you hit play. Watch it for the laughs. Watch it for the shots. Don’t watch it for depth. You’d be barking up the wrong tree.