Writer/ Director: Dare Olaitan
Cast: Gbolahan ‘Bollylomo’ Olatunde, Chuey Chu, Tosan Wiltshire, Charles Etubiebi Oke
Year: 2017
Lagos Big Boy is about the pursuit of stardom in Lagos, an aspiring singer is at the center of situations here. You know how guys are, one person makes it in a group and the rest give up on their lives to feed on the hard work of one person. Ebuka (Chuey Chu) is a hustler and Tunji (Tosan Wiltshire) is naive. They get involved in shady deals and in the very first scene we enjoy the complicated nature of Lagos. We watch the young men (as hopeful as they are) they get swindled, this is enough to set the pace for rivalry, and a complicated story that we should love, but it does not. In fact, leading to that scene, Lagos Big Boy does not offer the excitement of a show’s pilot episode.
Like I did with “Inspector K”, I was eager to see Lagos Big Boy’s debut episode so that I share my opinion of the series with you. The name is captivating, and even though the trailer was not too exciting, there was a lot to look forward to. A show that promises a lot of upcoming actors is one to watch. We want to watch their progress. It is also interesting that Lagos Big Boy offers to cater to the male audience. The trailer fell into the usual bad trailers category- lots of noise, no defined plot and that was it. I still wanted to see it though. After all, Dare Olaitan who created Ojukokoro was making the series, and going by his wildly creative mind which I experienced by watching Ojukokoro, I thought that there would be more intrigues in this one, but Lagos Big Boys has nothing intriguing to offer aside from fine boys engaging in a similar type of drama we have been seeing on Funke Akindele’s “Industreet”. Of course, Lagos Big Boy is far from a copy of “Industreet”, but “Industreet” serves all the purpose that “Lagos Big Boy” is trying to offer.
We have had a number of stories that concentrated on female friends, with very few catering to the male folks, it is because of this we have “Lagos Big Boy”. Unfortunately, even for women, Lagos Big Boy is pale.
Lagos Big Boy succeeds only because of the director’s impressive attention to details the camera angles and the coloring is definitely what we can thank for taking attention away from some of the problems that exist for the series. The numbers are going down by episodes, and we fear we might not follow this to the very end because there are a lot of disappointments already.
Lagos Big Boy could have pulled the male audience with better execution and better actors, and it could have given the female audience something new to enjoy. Unfortunately, it fails at it. The acting is also part of the problem, but we would let you continue the conversation.
Have you seen Lagos Big Boy? Does it fulfill its purpose of giving the male folks something new? Let us know if you think so.
