Funke Akindele lives as an Omo Getto

By Adedayo Odulaja

A first glance at the cover jacket of the movie, Omo Getto, what would probably come to your mind, especially if you are a follower of the Yoruba section of Nollywood, is “another lavish photo shoot cover with the real content lacking the appreciable intensity of a creative effort.” If that is your line of thought, then you are dead wrong as many have discovered after checking out the content of the movie.
Omo Getto presents a spectacle, the rawness of which one might struggle to cope with and what is more than a movie that hits you from the very first blast with raw action? The movie opens on a set of young, rough women who are being chased around by another set made up of a couple of guys and a young woman. We are soon made to know that the lady’s piece of jewellery has just been snatched, hence her attempt to retrieve it. On getting to a spot however, the pursuit ends suddenly and roles are reversed because the place is a kind of boundary. The next scene reveals a man known in his area as Baba oni baba (Adebayo Salami) effortlessly reeling off the songs of great musicians like Fela, Ajadi Lawal, Ayinla Omoruwa and Ebenezer Obey, much to the amusement of some younger folks.
The progression continues as light beams on Ayomide (Funke Akindele) and Yanju (Taiwo Ibikunle), two people in love but whose relationship is constantly threatened by the volatile anger of Ayomide. This is brought into sharp focus when, as a result of calling Yanju without answers, Ayomide smashes her phone to the ground. And just after her latest rush of uncontained anger, Yanju walks in to explain that his reason for not picking the calls is down to being very close to her house already. As further development comes to the theme through the relationship between Ayomide and Yanju, much against the approval of his mother, who has witnessed flashes of Ayomide’s anger, Yanju is bent on continuing with Ayomide. But his resolve is tested when Ayomide attempts to help stabilise the relationship of her friend, Kanyisola (Shola Asedeko). After having urged the said Tunde to be good to her friend by putting an end to his philandering attitude, Ayomide is appalled when the guy hugs and kisses another lady in her presence, the fire of her anger again rages again and she lands a stinging slap on Tunde’s cheeks. The move lands her to the hospital as she is thoroughly beaten by Tunde, the first time anyone would reprimand her. Ayomide’s mother (Peju Omobolanle) is forced to seek spiritual answers to the problem but Yanju still assures her of his undying love demonstrated through his unconditional care and kind words.
But soon after recovering from the incident and back home, a suggestion by Yanju that Ayomide should probably beg his sister so as to mend fences, sparks another round of fury in Ayomide. Not even the persuasion by Yanju to forget the issue could have any effect on her and she goes on until she smashes a bottle on her fiancé’s head, sending him into a coma and running away on realising the gravity of what she has done.
Two months later, the page is turned to the other side of town and life if you care, as life in the slum, which is the major thematic preoccupation of the movie, takes centre stage. Activities of certain people in a slum said to be Ebute Metta and Badia in Lagos, where crime, drugs and immoral acts go hand-in-hand and dreams are hardly ever realised. Here, Shalewa, who is also known as Lefty, again played by Funke Akindele, is the ring leader of a group of girls who hold sway in the slum and one of the most daring moves of the group of young women occur after a party that has become one of their regular hang outs with some local music stars. Some rich girls take over the stage with plenty of cash to spend, disgracing the ghetto girls in the process and to revenge, they later go out of their ways after this to consume all sorts of concoctions and ending in the toilet to pass out the waste. With a high stake mischief up their sleeves, the ladies bring the waste together, making it very watery and eventually pouring it on the ‘forming’ ladies who are too unprepared and destabilised to fight back.
Another powerful feature of this area of the society is the regular match up of voices, the type called ‘the battle’ in America and which you have in the film, 8 Mile, featuring Eminem although that is for rap while this is just to twist words, use anecdotes to win the admiration of bystanders or spectators. It is about representatives of groups who are nominated to challenge in a battle of wits and abuses in a session of a large crowd anchored by Ronke Ojo also known as Ronke Oshodi Oke. The scene is packed with abundant excitement as Lefty tears the representative of the males she encounters to shreds with her biting tongue.
During one of their sessions at a rendezvous point, Lefty is told that her boyfriend is with another girl and after confirming the authenticity of the information and finding out where the lady in question stays, off they go to attack her hood. It is while they are on their way to the lady’s location that they have another collision with a car that lands them at the police station.
Meanwhile, the long search for Ayomide, who has been on the run since the unfortunate incident regarding Yanju, is getting tiring for Yanju’s family and the police officers but on sighting Lefty, they all take it that she is the same as the Ayomide they seek. Despite how vehemently she says she is not Ayomide, nobody believes her except that her wild manners of speaking and acting confuses her mother and friend that something is amiss. While at the station, Kanyisola receives a call from Ayomide and when they meet, Kanyisola, her friend, accuses her of having been at the station which she denies. That moment however sets up the process of unraveling the truth.
One can say the movie, in terms of the resolution of conflict heightened by the intensity of the situations, is given a soft landing with the explanation that Ayomide and Lefty, notorious with such girls like Data, Busty and other members of her group, are twins. One of them is however later handed out to Ayomide’s mother for cash as a result of financial issues and their flashes of uncontrollable anger is due to a warning their mother refuse to heed while they were children. Another area of error is that the acting of Ireti Osayemi does not convince anyone she belongs to the ghetto, maybe a place among the rich girls would have been apt for her.
But in spite of this, it must be said that Omo Getto is a fantastic movie that combines the serious with the humourous, while not leaving out didactic punch lines for the society to learn. Funke Akindele has been down this road of acclaim before, with her chart-bursting exploits in celebrated Jenifa even if it doesn not make much sense. And this latest effort increases her stature as an actress, script writer and producer, one that movie followers can rely on to deliver the goods anytime if you don’t care about the controversies surrounding her.
The intriguing and arresting acting skills displayed by Adebayo Salami who is more popularly known as Oga Bello, in his role as Baba oni baba, is what one can describe as a piece of magical delivery in a role. The directorial ingenuity of Abiodun Olanrewaju, the director, also comes to the fore in one of the early scenes where a drop of the bottle of stout by Baba oni baba continues with the crashing of the flower vase on the floor by Ayomide in almost the same sequence. It is an interchange of scene continuity that is very impressive and rare, just like the flashback technique put in place when Ayomide’s mother narrates the story of the twins at birth to the lawyer. The conventional style of the total scene complete with the audio is not the case here; rather, there is a juggling of the voice matching the actions of the past.
How best does one illustrate the magnificence in the portrayal of Funke Akindele especially as Shalewa (Lefty) in the ghetto? It is one that stands up there with the best and is ultimately so convincing that it is breathtaking in its very essence. With a star-studded cast of names like Taiwo Ibikunle, Taiwo Hassan, Yinka Quadri, Racheal Oniga, Peju Omobolanle, Ireti Osayemi and Eniola Badmus who became popular for her ‘bigz girl’ role in Jenifa and Funke Akindele herself among others, many in the Yoruba movie terrain, especially the complacent ones, would have released anything to the market with the cast. But Funke Akindele is different and far better than that and any of the movies she has produced, like Ekuro, Awa Obinrin, Ojo Ketala, Agbefo and others is a valid statement in that direction. No wonder Omo Getto is enjoying so much popularity in town right now.