King of Boys

Kemi Adetiba’s “King of Boys” is a three hour visual experience in the guise of a movie. In 3 hours it manages to dismantle many nollywood tropes and presuppositions while engaging the audience in a way that some 15 minute short films still struggle to do.

The movie is the story of Alhaja Eniola Salami. On the surface she is a philanthropist and political aspirant, but beyond that she is also the king of the underworld. She is respected and acknowledged by the movers and shakers because she was instrumental and moving and shaking things and people in order to get them to the position they currently hold. However, she faces some challenges in her political career due to this same history.

The greatest triumph of King of Boys (KOB) is in the world it creates. From the characters to the sets, through the length of the three hour movie, the audience is immersed in a world quite familiar to our own but with ten times more rawness. Yet through the gore, the spectacle, the haste and the calm it never elicits any feeling of ‘unreal-ness’. Adetiba’s writing and directing manages to pull the audience in until they feel like they are part and parcel of the world of Salami and her family. Beyond this she manages to create empathy w\for a character that elicits intense fear from the same audience. So one finds themselves turning their face away from the screen at some of Salami’s actions but also anticipating the revenge she will bring forth on those who try to undercut her in future scenes.

This success cannot be wholly attributed to the writer and director without acknowledging the actor that plays Salami. Sola Sobowale is in a career changing role as Alhaja Salami in KOB. It’s the kind of role that many in nollywood live and die without ever experiencing. It gave her the opportunity to shake off all the boxes she has been placed into as an actor, and Sobowale more than delivered. In the first few scenes when she asks the groveling young man whether he has eaten, you begin to see the amount of dysfunction in Salami’s brain and being able to tell that through Sobowale’s performance is enough to applaud.

Beyond Sobowale, all the cast members of this movie leave behind their comfort zones and pour themselves into becoming the characters in this world that Adetiba has created. Adesua Etomi Wellington is brilliant as the scary yet brilliant Kemi who is the shadow of her mother but also able to fill in her shoes if the need ever arises, Ademola Adedoyin is an exquisitely convincing soft and troubled son that does beautifully in helping to portray that juxtaposition the writer presents between the strength of women when they are enabled versus the weakness that can be present in men. Then there is Toni Tones as the young Eniola – aka the crowning glory of the casting director – becomes young Eniola in a way that no one would have imagined she could. She embodies the charm and the terror with the same ease, such that it isn’t difficult to imagine that she becomes the Alhaja Salami. And let’s not forget the brilliance that was Reminisce in his effortless brilliance in bringing the terror that is Makanaki to life.

King of Boys is a cinematic experience from start to finish that displays the level of effort and artistry poured in by all those involved in its creation.