As I was ‘’saying’’ …
The once peaceful and loving family erupts in chaos when Kunle shamelessly arrives to claim his ‘goods’ and the older brothers are playing hard-ball. Even when he brazenly spews out threats and gun, the beleaguered mother still lovingly longs for her adorable son to calm down and forgive his siblings. But the scenario is now complicated for the wily Billy-goat, Moyo has absconded with the drugs.
As Moyo bumbles around London city trying to find a buyer, Kunle is under immense pressure from the original owner of the cocaine, Boss (Segun Arinze) and in turn has become a thorn in the flesh of his two brothers and their wives. Meanwhile, Moyo’s naiveté is exposed when he sells the first tranche of cocaine at a ridiculous 20,000 pound sterling to a gang of roughneck Jamaican drug dealers. When they trace Moyo home so as to retrieve their money and confiscate the rest of the stuff, Moyo concocts a sneaky escape leaving the old woman at the mercy of the Jamaican killers.
The old woman dies under crazy ‘’interrogation techniques’’, and the killers leave in disappointment, with blood and carnage trailing their deadly footsteps. By now, the word on the streets portends doom for Kunle… cheap coke on the streets... and the real owners are bleeding. We are soon treated to grand gangsterish mayhem as homes and people are attacked, shot, threatened, maimed and such gory upheavals in clear digital details.
Meanwhile, oblivious to the catastrophe he has left behind; Moyo paints the city in brilliant obscenely prodigal red. He rollicks with women, quaffing wines, rolling in stretched limousine…all the works. The new ‘’sheik’’ is in town!
But nothing goes on forever. The fast-paced conclusion rapidly throws up calamities in confetti style: Boss goes wild, kills Kunle’s white girlfriend, Sarah; tortures Femi, Wale and Kunle in a crazed dash to locate his drugs…. One of his main goons (Simi Opeolu) torments and murders Femi’s ebullient wife (Sola Sobowale); Moyo loses the plot completely and rollicks into the hands of the British police who clamps him into jail…and in a scene reminiscent of the dash and flash of Hugh Jackman or Keanu Reeves' cliff-hanger wrap-ups, the three brothers combine to turn the tables on the mafia goons as they all, in a Mexican stand-off crescendo, walk into the waiting arms of the encircling police force.
The last scene shows the considerable influence of the producer/director in massing fleet of police cars, uniformed officers, surveillance helicopter, and the munitions to create a thundering climax.
Phew, the flick is as good as, if not better, than any thriller from this side of the world.
OFF THE CUFF… MY OBSERVATION
I’m reluctant to write a critique of “Family on Fire” because, to be fair and serious-minded, one will need more than one viewing to do justice to the production.
However, I will like to make few observations. Short of boring you, I need to reiterate, that the essential message of the flick is the ‘’grabber’’ for me. Message: Be very careful of how you are training your child today…so that he or she does not become the petrol-bomb that will be used to set your home, heart and reputation on fire, in years to come. That showering love on a child is not by itself an error, but must not be an excuse for lack of discipline, parental care and guide, mentoring processes and a listening ear.
The work itself uses sundry techniques to announce its core values: the sound direction is top-grade, producing noiseless sound that is staggeringly clean and clear (what you will find at Silverbird Galleria’s top-of-the-bill American feature film parade). The flexibility, blend, diversity and appropriateness of several musical forms and soundtracks deployed in the thriller add to the pace and pulse of the movie.
The pictures are fairly sharp and well adjusted for big screen. Subtitling is unusually correct and apt. Most Yoruba films I watch have atrocious translations of Yoruba to English. However, this film is mum in certain crucial portions when the Jamaican gang members are spitting their patois (unlike the attempt to clarify, for the viewer, the mafia Boss’s curses and lingo). Or when the Indian couple, adjourning Femi’s house, appears to be speaking vernacular. We do not believe that’s a comic interjection. And also, English flourishes as adlibs in the film extensively, but the producers ignore to switch the subs to Yoruba (for the benefit single language speakers).
The sporadic switches (sometimes antithetic) between different scenes happening simultaneously but having compelling linkages to each other, creates a significant sense of urgency, panic, rush of activities …which ultimately gives the film a racy, all-action, heart-pumping ambience fitting for a fine modern thriller.
It is in order (and as usual for Tade Ogidan) that some fresh faces are introduced. It is not that the famed acts like Fosudo, Balogun, Sobowale, Arinze, etc do not deliver their roles well in ‘’Family on Fire’’… no, they provide accomplished performances, especially Fosudo and Balogun. However, the performances of little known Ologbosere and Olusanya, including the actor that plays his wife acquit, themselves creditably, thereby burnishing the overall good conduct of the entire cast. Freshness is implied, and instilled.
You see, acting well is not just about your movement or delivery of lines…extra effort in clear voicing of your dialogue; effortless mannerisms peculiar to a character; apparent flexibility in handling little roles in a big way…work well on keen eyes, and give the film an air of ‘’normality’’.
When characters in a film appear like people you know somewhere around your neighbourhood, you realize that hundreds of hours of quality time have been invested in producing, directing and editing life’s most precious achievement: life imitating life so effortlessly.
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LAST LINE…
That is what I saw on the first night of watching Tade Ogidan’s “Family On Fire” that Easter Monday… and I recommend it to everyone who cares about the future of our children (our nation); who agonizes over the current malaise bedeviling our value systems and growth indices; who is desirous of ways to arrest the drift and not fold hands in irresponsible frustration… watch and re-watch…and get more copies to give others… so that more and more families will miss the fire next time.
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