Brotherhood (2022) || Family or Duty?

What comes to your mind when you hear the word, ‘Brotherhood?’ I don’t know about you but a few things come to mind. Protection. Devotion. Purpose. An unbreakable bond shared between a group of people. A brotherhood involves people who would fight to the last for their goals and risk their lives to keep one another safe. It transcends just people working towards a given goal to brothers. But what happens when one of the biggest vices known to tear people apart comes between them, would that mean that it was never one to begin with?

Brotherhood (2022)

About The Film

Brotherhood, a Nigerian crime-action thriller, released in 2022, produced by Jade Osiberu and directed by Loukman Ali, all top-notch filmmakers in the Nigerian movie industry. The film, starring top-notch actors already imbues the audience with a firm expectation of a film that would be nothing short of stellar. It’s mainly set in the city of Lagos, the heart of Nigeria but also features settings in other African countries like Togo, Senegal, etc

Plot Summary

The scene begins in the night with a man and his wife. They seem to be coming from an occasion and are in high spirits. Their two sons, who we later discover to be twins are seated in the back of the car as well. In the pouring rain, they notice a lady who is fiddling with the bonnet of her car which seems to be faulty. Unknown to the kind family who stop to inquire as to what the matter is, it’s a trap and they’re immediately waylaid and promptly gunned down leaving the two kids, wounded and huddled together as survivors. The story promptly begins from there.

Fast forward to the present and our twin boys have grown into fine young men. Or not necessarily fine in every sense of the word as Akin is constantly on the wrong side of the law and recently even gets out of jail, while Wale receives a promotion to become a member of the SWAT team in the Armed Forces. It’s soon understood that the brothers aren’t on speaking terms and detest each other’s guts based on their “career paths,” often referring to themselves as police and criminal as concerns them. Their aunt, who seems to be their only relative is their guardian and her attempts to wash the bad blood between them prove futile.

We soon encounter the formidable “Ojuju boys,” who for the sake of this review, are the antagonists of the play and during an attempted robbery, Akin discovers that one of them is a childhood friend and his life is immediately spared. He reunites with this long-lost brother of his, who refers to him as Kalashnikov, and eventually introduces him to the rest of the gang including their boss when Akin states that he has a big job offer for them.

They run the robbery heist successfully and Wale begins to suspect that there is a connection between the big heists and the Ojuju boys but he is shut down by his team. This makes him resolve to conduct his investigations alone. Meanwhile, Akin meets and falls in love with his Boss’ daughter, Kamsi and soon enough, they get married. Despite Wale’s stern instructions that his brother doesn’t show up to his wedding, Akin arrives with his crew and throws money around to the displeasure of everyone at the wedding, including Wale’s Boss and father-in-law, ASP Daniel.

Maybe everything would have kept going smoothly but as is the nature of human beings, greed begins to set in the crew and once greed clouds the mind, sloppiness, carelessness, and therefore, grievous mistakes become the other of the day. The parallel line begins to narrow and law and crime soon find themselves in a face-off. In times like this, however, there can only be one victor.

My Review and Rating

I loved this movie for several reasons. The plot was captivating, scintillating and had everything that is needed to have viewers at the edge of their seats in what is a gripping tale of crime, law and family. Roles were interpreted and delivered with finesse, especially with the protagonists and the synergy was smooth from start to finish.

However, I did have a few peeves in the movie. First, there was a need to trim out the very many scenes. A lot of them felt too dragged out and even more seemed quite unnecessary. The constant need to add scenes to what may perhaps be a short plot is something quite delicate and frankly not achievable if apt directing is missing. It made the pacing of the movie seem poor, thereby making it appear longer than it was.

Some of the acting felt forced as a few actors were either overacting or underacting. I also noticed the need to give more lines to some of the celebrity actors in the film, leading to the aforementioned dragging and thus, stealing something, albeit minute from the production. There was a little discrepancy in the ending of the movie but it was still rather satisfying in my opinion. The kind of ending that you wonder whether or not there would be a sequel.

Overall, Brotherhood, wasn’t a poor film retrospectively and I would boldly count it as one of the many good works of the Nigerian film industry. It’s refreshing and can count a good watch through and through. I’ll comfortably give it an 8 over 10 and recommend it as a nice weekend watch to anyone interested in seeing a Nigerian thriller come to play.

Jhymi🖤