Gangs of Lagos: A Street Opera From the Mean Streets of Nigeria
By Liam Lacey
Rating: B
The Nigerian film industry, also known as “Nollywood,” is often cited with surprise as the second busiest national cinema in the world after India, with about 2,500 titles released each year.
Internationally, though, it has had little impact: No prizes at major film festivals, Cinematheque retrospectives, or significant box office outside of Africa.
That might be ready to change, as the home-grown industry has rapidly evolved from the low-budget video productions of the ‘90s to a polished, multi-genre popular cinema today. Hollywood’s African-centered movies (the two Black Panther features, The Woman King) have been international hits. This year, director, C.J. 'Fiery' Obasi’s Mami Wata was the first Nigerian feature from Nigeria to premiere at Sundance.
Street fighting, Nigerian-style, in Gangs of Lagos.
Content-hungry streaming services, including Netflix, which has more than 40 Nigerian titles on its roster, and Amazon Studios, are anxious to do business with Nollywood.
The crime drama Gangs of Lagos is the first Amazon Original film made in Africa, as part of a three-year deal with filmmaker, Jadesola Osiberu. It’s part of an overall investment in future Nigerian cinema, with the hope that crime pays.
Gangs of Lagos starts with a traffic jam in the neighbourhood of Isale Eko (aka Lagos Island), the heart of Lagos. Midst the rows of stalled cars and yellow cabs, two adolescent boys boldly snatch a purse from the car of a rich woman. After the theft, the boys - Obalola, his friend and his friend, Ify - meet up with their tomboy girlfriend, Gift. And as they admire the wad of cash they have stolen, they vow will be “street brothers” for life. Obalola, whose father was from a traditional ruling family, believes he’s destined to be a leader.
The rich woman soon gets her purse back from the local crime boss, but Obalola gets noticed, and is adopted by enforcer, Nino (Tayo Faniran), despite the boy’s mother’s fierce objections. Nino is fatherly and generous. And, as a bonus, Obalola meets Teni, the cute daughter of another enforcer, Kazeem (Olarotimi Fakunle) who lives next door.
The kids grow up, played by an attractive group of adult actors Tobi Bakre (Obalola), Nigerian singer Chike-Ezekpeazu Osebuka (Ify), Adesua Etomi-Wellington (Gift) and, Bimbo Ademoye as the love interest, Teni. The adult Obalola tells the story in voice-over, introducing us to the multi-level crime world of drug dealing, protection rackets, human trafficking, theft, murder and political corruption. When living comfortably under Nino’s roof, Obalola begins to have mainstream aspirations of an education and an honest political career.
His hopes are scuttled after his guardian, Nino, gets killed in a gang fight. The battle is the first of several set-piece action sequences in the film, a choreographed spectacle shot from above and at ground level, with spinning bodies, knives, boots, pipes and hatchets. In the aftermath, the narrator tells us, “more than 100” men were left dead. (I had assumed one of the more brutal fighters was a red-haired, white-skinned European, who somehow got entangled in Nigerian crime. In fact, he’s an albino actor, Damilola Ogunsi, who has become a role model for a stigmatized albino minority in Nigeria)
Obalola and his friends are put to work by Kazeem, a man who has a meat-packing business and does particularly nasty things to people who cross him. After he sends his own daughter off to university in the United States, he puts the young people to work in his protection racket, squeezing payments from the disdainful local market women.
Later, Kazeem’s daughter returns from the United States, now a pampered young woman, whose daddy sets her up in an elegant condo. Obalola is assigned to be her chauffeur and bodyguard, though the old spark remains between them, despite their difference in status.
Meanwhile, Ify aspires to leave the gangster life behind and become a musician. But there is some dirty work he’s obliged to do first. Gift, now a woman with be beaded bangs and punk attire, pops up intermittently to deliver withering looks and rib kicks to her rivals.
After a complex double-cross that might require a Power Point demonstration to fully grasp, there’s a fantastical cathartic showdown at a fancy memorial service, suggestive of a John Woo climactic scene.
Gangs of Lagos is only the second feature directed by 33-year-old Jáde Osiberu, though she has producer-writer credits on previous films. She’s clearly studied the films of Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola, both in the voluptuous violence and the quasi-Shakespearian themes of birthright and betrayal.
The result is a derivative but solidly made street opera, acted broadly by North American conventions and a bit too tidy in the end.
What cuts through are those generic elements that feel specific to Nigeria, both the celebratory aerial shots of the bustling city, and the film’s blunt critique of the political criminal complex. When one character expresses a desire to leave a life of crime, he’s told by his boss there are just two ways out: Go into the ground or into politics.
On TV screens through the film, we see a woman gubernatorial candidate (Toyin Abraham) who is running on an anti-corruption platform. On a TV news show, she looks at the camera and asks how rich politicians can send their children abroad while leaving other people’s kids to die in the streets.
Gangs of Lagos. Directed by Jádesola Osiberu. Writen by Jádesola Osiberu and K. I. Jegede. Starring Tobi Bakre, Adesua Etomi-Wellington, Chike Osebuka, Bimbo Ademoye, Tayo Faniran. Available on Prime Video on April 7.