A wealthy hunk with a randy father, what better recipe is there for baking a life filled with women and its ancillary wahala? This summarily paints the background of the 2021 high-grossing film, Tanwa Savage.

Uzor! Since ‘Inspector Sam’ character stole the limelight in the 2017 movie, Sergeant Tutu, bulky actor, Uzor Arukwe has become an alluring sight on Nigeria’s silver screen. Here in Tanwa Savage, he takes a break from the smart cop/detective stereotype to project the dysfunctional life of a polygamous man as Jola Savage.

Jola relies on the impulse of his ‘third leg’ in search of a solution to his most embarrassing problem – childlessness. He ended up with “three answers to his prayer” as three women announces their pregnancy to him in quick successions in a single scene. Jolaoluwa goes from initial ecstasy when his wife’s friend, scouting with the couple confronted him with the news of her pregnancy. Jola wants to just break the news to his naïve wife, regardless of it being the result of adultery right under Zainab’s nose. Finally, his dream comes true, he’s going to be a father, nothing else matters!

But Zainab shows up right in the middle of the excitement to the break her own news – she’s finally pregnant for her beloved husband after several years of trying and waiting. Tosin, played by curvy screen goddess, Bimbo Ademoye, cut through the awkward silence occasioned by Zainab’s pregnancy news to smash the shameful revelation of her illicit romance with her friend’s husband right in her face. This was supposed to be the happiest day of Jola and Zainab’s life, but Tosin goes ahead to surprise her friend with the further news of her pregnancy. The scene wouldn’t climax yet until Uju shows up to add the ‘BIA’ to Jola’s WAZOBIA pregnancy distribution project. Nkechi Blessing bounces in alongside her vast backside to spice up the ridiculousness even further, with a news of her own incoming Jola Jnr.

In the midst of all the madness, Linda Osifo delivers the character of a classy, grieving, betrayed pregnant wife, who’s got to deal with the menace her husband’s promiscuity has brought to their hitherto peaceful home. Jola’s father, played by veteran actor, Segun Arinze, talks him into accepting Uju’s forceful move-in into the Savage’s mansion and his world takes a turmoil twist, which the whole movie sorts to interpret in various comical forms.

Storyteller/Filmaker, Geshin Salvador may have put in a great effort to illustrate the world of a young family booted into dysfunctionality by the mistakes arising from the social pressures of having a child. One would imagine that every scene was an effort to paint a bifurcate of consequences and comedy of ‘when life happens’. Jola had to pay the price of adultery, but the nuances of his implied ‘playboyrism’ never got a clear show. Here was Jola, rich and handsome son of an influential womanizer, who himself has been hopping around the behinds of various kinds of babes, much so that Uju was a girl he snatched from his bosom friend, becoming chivalry to them girls all because they claimed to be pregnant. Kind of far from reality. At that height of success in reality, Jola would rather procure the care for the other two girls now that his very beloveth wife is pregnant too. Jola is depicted as caring and compassionate, yet cold and self-indulging. Maybe a deliberate twist of the writer, but the delivery leaves a gap in the mind of viewers as to the actual personality of the character.

Directing surely was of low performance in this movie. The scuttles scenes had punchlines falling flat, jabs hanging in the air and too much of noise making rather. The effort to put a Yoruba fowl-mouthed against an Igbo crazy ‘bitch’ didn’t quite play out well. Nkechi Blessing definitely didn’t deliver on the script – very unbeliever character, exaggerated interpretations. Tosin and Uju ‘sub’-trading were all over the place, didn’t quite elicit natural laughter. Viewers would struggle to understand the emotions they sort to stare in their arguments.

Zainab was a perfect character until the effort to infer some scenes through flashbacks, imaginations and suspense, leaves one wondering what her character was all about. Her affair with Michael, played by Timini, was supposed to be a twist, but played out has a passing act of human frailty. Most other effort at ‘curving’ the story, like the discovery that Jola’s friend was the father of Uju’s child, were very unbelievable interactions. For instance, the nurse congratulating Jola’s friend at the hospital is too basic a reason for Jola to ‘suddenly discover’ that the child might be his friend’s. For a man who’s longed to see his first child and knew his friend was ‘standing in’ for him at the hospital during Uju’s delivery, that a nurse comes out to congratulate the man that had brought the patient to the hospital does not affirm anything. Most allusions and conclusions of the script fall under this belt of ‘not convincing’ enough.

There were highlights that characterize a typical Nigerian plot in scenes where Jola has to run across three rooms in the middle of the night when all three heavily pregnant women needed his attention, and were Jola’s father was treated to the rowdiness and confusion he convinced his son to live with, much that he had to scream for help. The funniest of all may be when Tosin (Bimbo Ademoye) told Jola that “it was Jola Junior that was calling you but you ignored…I wanted to vomit and I wanted you to bring bowl for me to vomit, but as you ignored me the vomit now ignored me”. The blandest scene was where the three women were trying to bid Jola farewell on his way to work. Like that was going on with the ‘Gucci perfume” thing? And the flat comical effort of calling the security to come take gift from Tosin? Also, the scene of Jola’s father brining in a curvy lady to become his housemaid should not be in that movie. It’s a waste of viewer’s time!

Tanwa Savage Review

2.6 Reviewer

0 Users (0 votes)

Pros

Attraction (8) –Brilliant storyline of ‘fathering’ three children same time only to discover ‘none’ is yours. Cinematography (7) – Good effort at visual language, but lighting and setting could have been better.

Cons

Plot – Not plausible enough. Theme – The theme is confusing. What’s the bottom-line message of the movie? Infidelity has grave consequences or roll with ‘life happens’? Acting – Average delivery for most characters, except Zainab. Dialogue – Most dialogues had loose ends. Editing and Effects – Transitions were not smooth, disjointed scenes left room for confusion. Sound & Music – Sound was not crisp, appropriate music absent. Directing – Below Geshin’s own standard. A lot of the scenes ought to have be reshot. The “it” Factor – Nothing spectacular about this movie order than fans wanting to watch their movie idols.

Theme3

Screenwriting2.5

Visual Design2

Cinematography3.5

Editing2.5

Sound and Music2

Acting2.5

Directing3

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• Theme
• Screenwriting
• Visual Design
• Cinematography
• Editing
• Sound and Music
• Acting
• Directing