Hi Difers! Long time no movie review right? You’re gonna love this review because it’s about the highest-grossing movie in Nigeria by one of the super talented actresses, directors & producers in Nigeria. Difers, it’s time for the movie review of …. Battle on Buka Street by Funke Akindele!

The movie kicked off with the lead actress’ monologue about her present thriving food business and rewinds to a chaotic family setting of her food-loving father, Mazi Maduka, and his hyper-troublesome rival wives, with their trouble-inherited daughters Awele and Yejide who became rivals right from birth. The father’s super-confused experience when the two rival wives were in labor for their daughters’ birth was a scene to behold (in my mind, I was like “God catch you” to Maduka). The first wife, Ezinne gave birth to Ijeawele while the second wife, Asabi gave birth to Yejide. That day, another level of family rivalry was birthed even till the daughters became women and got married.  Marriage did a thing, Awele had to leave her home community, Otanwa Community with her husband and Yejide had her life, business, family running peacefully until Awele returned with her 3 daughters excluding her husband back to Otanwa Community, she rented a shop to sell food opposite Yejide’s thriving food-selling shop at Buka Street. 

Guess you see it’s a reloaded war abi? Because it was. Awele became jealous of Yejide’s thriving business which was supported by Asabi’s special soup-making skills.  Awele tried to cajole her own sick mother,  Ezinne to be making soup for her business too but it didn’t work considering Ezinne’s ill health. Meanwhile, we see that even though Yejide is trying to give her family a happy face, the family is constantly being stigmatized for their father being a killer.

While there are quite a number of amusing scenes in this movie, the scene where Akinzo said “Thank you very much for that question” before he answers any question when he was toasting Awele’s daughter was quite amusing to me, because people really do this thing and it’s just funnily unfunny…Personally, I think it gives a stupid vibe like the speaker doesn’t know what to say. The scene became more amusing with the twins and Awele’s mocking mannerisms she even asked for the guy’s BVN if it will give her money in the bank. The rivalry continued between Awele’s children and Yejide’s children…how Ademide, Yejide’s son traveled to America and Awele insisted and announced that her daughter, Ifunanya traveled to Canada. Awele instigated her twin daughters to lock the door on Grandmother Asabi in the house so she won’t be able to come to the shop to cook soup for Yejide’s food business. I kept asking myself, why did Yejide have to wait for her mother to cook soup for her business, no matter how good the mother’s soup-cooking skill is, why did Yejide not learn from the mother how to make soup after years of running the food business?

 The rivalry between Yejide and Awele continued with attacks on their businesses led by their daughters. It wasn’t really surprising to see that Ademide and Ifunanya were not in America or Canada like their mothers celebrated, rather the children jammed themselves at their stations of work in Lagos. They reunited, and Ifunanya helped Ademide to clear out of prison when he was wrongly apprehended for theft. The peak of their business rivalry was when Yejide’s daughter, Fadekemi schemed and burnt Awele’s shop. This heightened the rivalry heat and in the midst of this heat, Lanshile, Yejide’s husband escaped prison and came home to his family. Now, there’s a battle in Yejide’s home as the children didn’t want to accept the tagged murderer as their father. This made Yejide explain to the children how their father met her at the scene when out of self-defense she killed a young man who tried to sexually harass her. The father positioned himself as the killer and was apprehended even though Yejide over the years unsuccessfully tried to prove her husband’s innocence but she was denied justice. This made the children remorsefully accept their father and henceforth the movie shifted into an emotional gear. The children’s reuniting with their father was an emotional one. 

A very surprising scene was how Asabi mourned the death of Ezinne…her shift from dramatic mourning to a scornful show is second-to-none (Mama Sola Sobowale is good! Action por). Things got more complicated when Ademide helped to save Ifunanya at the carnival stampede and brought her to his father’s hiding place.  Trouble brewed and arrived when Ajele traced her daughter to the hiding place, saw Lanshile, and called the youth leader to expose where Yejide has been hiding her wanted husband, Lanshile who escaped from the prison. The entire family plus Ifunanya begged Awele not to finally expose Lanshile and his family, somehow that plead worked and we saw drama between Awele and Yejide trying to distract the youth from searching for the wanted prisoner but Akinzo, the youth leader refused to be confused, and proceeded to search the place for the wanted prisoner whom they met with his children and Ifunnaya in the hiding place. While Akinzo insisted to apprehend Lanshile, his children and Awele’s daughter (whom Akinzo don dey eye) profusely begged Akinzo not to expose Lanshile or release him to the police. This scene was a deeply emotional one for me…I cried! Even Akinzo’s assistant joins in the begging to convince AKinzo not to expose Lanshile.

Finally, Akinzo agreed and they devised a way to make Lanshile escape, thanks to Awele’s neighbour who is catching feelings for troublesome Awele. The movie, Battle on Buka Street ended with nods and sighs of relief that Lanshile had successfully escaped and the war finally ended between two arc-rivals. Needless to say, this movie as long as it was gave all the givings from start to finish…the highs and lows of emotions, the ‘Nigerianness’ of the Nigerian society, her people, and the bliss of humanity in total. Every cast in this movie brought their A-game and it was all worth it…Battle on Buka Street na correct solid movie that made me proud of Nollywood. 

Hey Difers, don’t forget to comment and share the post’s link among your contacts, status, and stories. Cheers to a pleasant weekend! Je t’aime mon ami🤗🤗