Back in 2018, Kemi Adetiba pioneered a new kind of Nigerian cinema. While Nollywood has always been interested in crime as a social phenomenon, with King of Boys, Adetiba injected a level of modern immersion into the subgenre. The world of her Lagos noir was operatic yet rich in detail; there was a method to the madness of the criminal underbelly. Rules existed to keep the hierarchy intact, and there were grave consequences for flouting them. The story unfolded like a Shakespearean tragedy, commanding your attention from the first shot until the last. This approach was refreshing at the time, and the film opened to wide acclaim.
It’s been seven years since then, and looking back, it’s hard to deny its influence. Nollywood has cashed in big on the crime wave to mixed results; some projects have dared to be sharp and inventive in their storytelling, while others, content with repeating a well-worn formula, experienced diminishing returns.
The year is 2025 and Nigerian audiences are no longer starved for grit and realism in high-budget crime stories. Over the years, Netflix has become the main gateway for these gritty tales, debuting titles such as Shanty Town, The Black Book, Oloture, Blood Sisters, Tokunbo, and even Adetiba’s own King of Boys: The Return of The King. Even in a high school drama like Far From Home, these elements seep through whether they mesh well with the tone or not, in the form of grim violence, unforgiving crime bosses, and drug dealings gone belly up. There was hope that with the Netflix backing, there would be an increase in the quality and appeal of these stories, but things seemed to stagnate the more the genre expanded, until the Netflix pipeline, once a sure bet for crime thrillers, began to sputter. Right now, the industry’s relationship with the streamer seems suspended in limbo.
It is against this backdrop that To Kill a Monkey arrives, and from the same director who breathed new life into this era of the industry, too. I watched the trailer with bated breath and whispering humbleness, eager to dive into this new world and engage with its characters. Eager to experience another refreshing angle on crime and noir. However, while the limited series is bound to be a crowdpleaser, a closer inspection reveals cracks in the foundation.
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Adetiba wastes no time in throwing us into the mix.
The opening scene is ripped straight out of a horror playbook; young boys perform an occult ritual at knifepoint, swearing their flesh and blood to their new master, who tells them, through his ghoulish mask: “Welcome to Lagos.”
The story progresses with a voiceover narration that reminded me of Goodfellas, introducing Efemini “Efe” Edewor (William Benson), our main character. To describe Efe as down on his luck would be an understatement on the order of calling hell warm and toasty. From his narration, we understand that life has dealt him more bad days than good ones. He is a husband and a father, and has been struggling for years to pull his family out of poverty. Finishing with a First Class didn’t help, neither did anything else he’s tried in the intervening years. On most nights, after his day job at a restaurant, he heads to a regular spot where he can steal Wi-Fi to practice his programming skills; life has been an epic disaster, but he is determined to keep forging ahead.
The first two episodes rub our noses in Efe’s misery. Misfortune stalks him at every turn— his personal computer gets stolen, he loses a newborn to malnutrition, and he can’t afford a proper burial for his mother. His troubles are so relentless (he’s also owing his employers about three hundred thousand naira) that his supervisor (Emeka Okoye) concludes that God must be holding a personal grudge against him.
The answer to his prayers comes in the form of Oboz (Bucci Franklin), an old friend from University who pays off his debt and helps him save face with his boss. Oboz offers him a position in his cyber crime empire, which Efe initially turns down, claiming to be too lily-livered for it.
He has a wife, Nosa (Stella Damasus) who is kind and understanding, defending Efe against attacks from her mother. But soon, things go from bad to worse. Nosa loses her job, Efe’s daughter (Teniola Aladese) is sexually harassed by a relative, and Efe himself suffers the same plight at the hands of his boss at the restaurant. These prove unbearable, and Efe returns to Oboz, ready to do whatever it takes. He pitches an idea to scale the cyber fraud business: using Artificial Intelligence to impersonate a person’s loved ones and steal their money. Oboz is excited, Efe is brought into the inner circle, and the show jumps ahead four years, failing to fully deliver on the promise of its premise.
Imagine a heist movie with no heist, or an action flick without a single high-stakes sequence; the time jump in To Kill A Monkey creates a similar predicament. It’s possible to be subversive with genre, like Quentin Tarantino does in Reservoir Dogs where the heist is only spoken about in dialogue, but never shown. However, to do this would require a good helping of craft and intentionality. Even though the actual heist is lost, a lot more is gained in the thrill of trying to find the mole. Conversely, losing the scenes where we see Efe acclimate to Oboz’s line of work only makes the final result appear lacking. We don’t get familiar with their operation or have a chance to observe how Efe’s idea brings about an exponential increase. Apparently, they leave a calling card of a monkey for all their victims, but we only hear that from the cyber crime unit chasing them down. By episode three in an eight-episode series, we’re already at the beginning of the end.
And the viewer can sense that something is off. Stories like To Kill A Monkey recall key elements of Martin Scorsese’s oeuvre. In his work, the main character goes from humble beginnings to become king of the world, and we are made to bask in this euphoria for a while, getting a feel of the excess and debauchery, before the inevitable crash-and-burn born of ripened hubris. Adetiba loses that crucial middle stretch and the story feels unbalanced as a result.
The next time we see Efe after the time jump is at a birthday party for his children. Nosa and Oboz’s wife, Idia (Lillian Afegbai), have gotten much closer, so have Efe and Oboz, who are now bona fide brothers. As Efe promised, his ideas have skyrocketed Oboz’s finances, and the pair are swimming in so much money that Oboz has splurged on a boat. There is some distrust in their camp, however, as Ozzy Boy (Michael Sunny), Oboz’s right-hand man, is convinced Efe is being dishonest with their money. Efe denies this completely, after being tortured by Oboz to see if he will crack. They might claim to be brothers, but it is clear they’re little more than strange bedfellows.
In this same episode, we’re introduced to Teacher (Chidi Mokeme), a veteran and godfather in the world of cyber crime; he demands a cut from Oboz’s business, and when it is ignored, sends a warning by making attempts on Efe’s daughter’s life as well as Oboz’s. This conflict barely has time to develop before we introduce drive-by shootings and car bombs.
There is already a clear antagonizing force in Inspector Mo Ogunlesi (Bimbo Akintola), who, in the aftermath of losing her entire family in an auto accident, suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. She returns to work after the time jump and is met with sneers from her peers and an abrasive attitude from her boss (Ireti Doyle). Still, determined to prove herself at all costs, she teams up with Inspector Onome (Michael O. Ejoor), a nice guy at the office, and tries to piece together the truth about Oboz’s criminal outfit. Because Fate is a harsh mistress and life mostly makes sense in hindsight, Mo discovers that she might’ve met Efe in passing; they were both at the hospital at the same time. While it is compelling watching some version of a cat-and-mouse game, Inspector Mo is undermined and frustrated at every turn almost as if she is in a different story entirely — a psychological thriller where nothing is as it seems.
Bimbo Akintola (Ijakumo) gives one of the most memorable performances in the show, holding her own in a long storyline that is mostly disconnected from the main action. But, without a doubt, the actors that will dominate the conversation are Benson (A Green Fever) and Franklin (The Weekend) as Efe and Oboz. Benson gives Efe a range of expressions from distraught to defiance, and then disillusionment, all with the subdued air of a man who realizes that riches have failed to save him from himself. He’s still as naive and self-righteous as ever.
The one who truly sets the screen ablaze is Franklin as Oboz. To Kill A Monkey features the regular tropes of this subgenre, from sensationalized gangsterism to chest-thumping and self-aggrandizement. These tend to get old quickly, especially in a show with a long runtime, but Franklin infuses Oboz with so much energy, even when he is cornered and at a disadvantage, that it is always a pleasure to see him on screen. Scenes with the pair are electric. Props must be given also to Adetiba as a director for eliciting such compelling performances from her actors. Even supporting characters like Afegbai’s Idia and Damasus’ Nosa are able to shine, as well as Sunshine Rosman (Superstar) who brings Ms. Sparkles to life with such charm.
What makes To Kill A Monkey a crowd favorite, in addition to the steady hand of the performances, is the plot which knows how to create big moments and keep the viewer on their toes with twists and turns. It is hard not to be moved by scenes such as Oboz meeting Efe and honouring him in front of his peers and superiors, for instance, or Inspector Mo battling her persistent night terrors. But the writing frequently lays it on too thick, sacrificing story logic for provocation. Things happen because they would be cool and edgy additions to the milieu, not necessarily because of thematic resonance.
My essay on King of Boys is titled “Feminism on Film, Lagos Noir, and the Cinema of Excess.” I discussed how Adetiba used the opulence on screen as a foil for the crime. In the opening scene, Eniola has the Governor at her party, but she also has a man being tortured behind closed doors, inches from death. The audience sees Eniola commit her heinous acts, from deception to murder; it is clear where the King and her peers acquire the money for their lavish parties. The excess becomes sickening by default, even as it reflects the farcical state of our politics and economy back to us.
Adetiba’s most recent entry features the wrong kind of excess– one that has little weight. The mechanics of how Oboz and Efe acquire their wealth isn’t shown in the text of the film; yes, many Nigerians have an idea of “yahoo yahoo” operations, but the film offers nothing to go on. How much did it destroy Oboz and Efe’s (mostly Efe’s) souls to defraud innocent (mostly old) people of their hard-earned money using Artificial Intelligence? How did they numb their consciences afterwards? The film shies away from this rich internal conflict, swapping it for challenges from without, and superfluous details of characters’ lives.
Its biggest missed opportunity is that it has such a long runtime, but the episodes feel meandering. The show is overwritten, as the audience is barely trusted to remember locations or make connections by themselves. The writer spells everything out. Every element is firing on all cylinders all the time. This is especially clear in the score by the acclaimed Oscar Heman-Ackah; he creates such a rich soundscape for the story, but the cues are overused, saturating the film so much that the music seems to spill over into the real world.
The character who embodies this incongruent type of excess is Teacher. Chidi Mokeme (Shanty Town) attempts to give some nuance to a crime lord who eats people for dinner. Yes, literally. You know what, that may as well happen— it’s Lagos, after all. But cannibalism seems so out of left field. If it’s supposed to show how brutal the character is, then too good a job has been done. Like using a cutlass where a pair of nail clippers would do.
From the opening sequence, it is clear that the show is going to prioritize shock and awe over shading characters or scenes with much variation. The film starts making its case and never stops. It’s possible to oversell your product so much that the average person grows weary of the marketing, and that is exactly what happens here.
While To Kill A Monkey has its moments of brilliance, it also seems weighed down by the very trends that once brought fresh energy to Nigerian storytelling. What began as an invigorating sprint, thanks to Kemi Adetiba’s bold vision in 2018, now feels like a limp at the halfway point, in an era where Netflix has severely scaled back their output. For all its ambition, it plays like an imitation of what made these stories exciting— this eagerness to allude to what has come before, is most evident in a scene where King of Boys is playing on screen. Although intended as a cheeky reference, all I saw was an ouroboros. The snake seems to be eating its own tail. I love that Nollywood and Adetiba have come this far, but a course correction is necessary if longevity is the goal.
To Kill a Monkey had the potential to be a sharp and engaging two-and-a-half-hour film. Instead, this bloated mess reveals the limitations of Nollywood’s current obsession. If we want to keep exploring crime—and there’s no reason we shouldn’t—then the stories need to keep the promise of their premise and not feature grit and harsh realities for their own sake— like having the main character get sexually assaulted twice in order to inspire some belaboured sympathy in the viewers.
I can’t believe I’m quoting Family Guy, but the whole thing insists upon itself. No dice.
I still have high hopes for King of Boys 3.
To Kill a Monkey premiered on Netflix on July 18.
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Side Musings
- About my high hopes for King of Boys 3, What can I say? I’ve been a Kemi Adetiba fan ever since The Wedding Party.
- Speaking of unnecessary twists, even the ending is a cliffhanger. It didn’t need to be.
- In an underwhelming turn of events, Teacher, the major antagonistic force of the story, is killed offscreen by a different cyber crime gang.
- When we suddenly discover that Nosa has been cheating on Efe with the doctor, this was my reaction: “Sure, that may as well happen.”
- To Kill A Monkey is the definition of everything and the kitchen sink being hurled at the wall to see what sticks. You have to admire the ambition and scope, and I do. The execution simply fails to measure up.
Your review sounds g*y. It sucks d*ck. Your problem is that they didn’t show you how he puts calls across to victims to dupe them? Maybe they should have interviewed yahoo boys to get an idea how that really works right? Then you say it should have been a 2 and the half hour movie yet you’re suggesting what else should have been added to the series.
I just became a Femi Adetiba fan, I am going to watch King of Boys to get familiar with her work. To Kill A Monkey is the best Nigerian movie/series i have watched. And I don’t watch many for good reason. But every now and then, a movie gets enough hype and I watch it to see if it’s actually imporved. To Kill A Monkey is the first time I am almost perfectly impressed by a Nigerian production. No flaws. Cinematography, story, acting, everything was incredible. Except for, yes, killing teacher off screen, it has zero issue. I don’t think showing us people they dupe adds or takes away from it. So yeah, your review sucks.
you should see Seven Doors or Clarence Peter’s Inside Life
I find your comment intellectually lazy and frankly, distasteful. Dissent can be a powerful way to learn, especially when it is grounded in reason and cogent arguments. But rather than engaging the reviewer’s depth with a thoughtful counterpoint, you resorted to cheap shots and juvenile insults. To be clear, someone’s sexuality (real or imagined) has absolutely nothing to do with the credibility of their critique. That kind of attack isn’t just irrelevant; it is a transparent deflection that exposes the weakness of your own argument.
You are entitled to love To Kill a Monkey. That is the beauty of art; it resonates differently with different people. But if your version of defending it involves personal attacks, condescension, and zero intellectual engagement, then you are detracting from the conversation. Next time, try meeting depth with depth.Intelligent people disagree without being disrespectful.
Thank you so much for being a truth teller in this era of Nigerian storytelling that obsess over sensationalism rather than true cinema.
Well done on putting together such a well-articulated and dispassionate review. Like you, I thought the series started off strong but quickly derailed. I know some creators prefer to stick with what has worked in the past, and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, forcing tropes that have no real bearing on the theme only weakens the story.
I watched the series because it was Kemi Adetiba, but by the time I got to the end, I was sorely disappointed. Save for Oboz, character development was lacking, and even the scenes meant to inspire shock or deliver plot twists left me feeling nothing because there was no emotional build-up. A good plot twist, while surprising, should still feel organic to the story. For example, Efe planning to abandon Amanda made zero sense in the context of his arc and how their relationship had evolved.
Personally, I thought the “cell” theme introduced at the beginning had real potential. It could have provided a strong foundation for the narrative, but it ended up having no meaningful bearing on the plot.
I’m usually careful about criticising creators because I understand the immense effort it takes to bring a production to life, especially in environments with limited support. That said, creators also have a responsibility to honour that effort with strong storytelling. Nollywood faced valid criticism in the past for poor effects and low production value, but now it feels like many creators think fixing those surface-level issues is enough to make a great film. In doing so, they overcompensate with glossy visuals and hollow twists, while neglecting the one thing that truly makes a story memorable – strong, cohesive storytelling. As for KOB 3, I’ll be reading objective reviews before deciding if it’s worth my time. After all, time is the unit of life…