One of the fears of a responsible man is his inability to cater for his family. People begin to question his masculinity when he fails in this social commitment. While there may be cultural variations in the duties of the man, his strength is constantly tested on both familial and communal grounds. The community despises the financially handicapped man as much as his family scorn him for failing to provide for them. The Akay Mason-directed Bank Alert dramatizes these sentiments through the life of its protagonist Sammy Okereke (played by the film producer and popular Nigerian comedian, Okey Bakassi), a former crypto manager who loses his job for whistleblowing on a fraudulent operation at his workplace.
Without a job and struggling to fend for his wife and children, Sammy becomes a laughing stock in the neighborhood as he accumulates debts. His wife, Jade (Kate Henshaw), becomes the breadwinner until she is fed up and leaves the home with their children. Luck smiles on Sammy when he receives an unexpected sum of 500 million naira in an account of his. But the euphoria is short lived when the supposed owner of the money, a gang leader named Modestus (Uzor Arukwe) goes after him and his family.
The film opens with a conversation between Sammy and his lawyer-friend, Uche (Kanayo O. Kanayo). Sammy laments losing a court case against his former employers who sacked him for breaching a non-disclosure agreement. Here, Sammy is portrayed as a morally upright man. But then, in a society like Nigeria, where corruption is rife and integrity is underappreciated, Sammy’s attempt to save the company from financial ruin is taken for granted. Life, the film theorizes, isn’t necessarily fair to the good-hearted.
The comedy drama presents the contemporary issue of cybercrime, scratching the surface and granting only a superficial access into the underworld. The operations of the Modestus-led cybercriminal gang are not well defined. Frauds like Marcus (Oli Ekun) are rife in the banking sector in Nigeria, but much information is not provided on how this character has worked with Modestus.
Amidst engagement with social realities, the film maintains its wits and humor. One awkward but funny moment is Sammy’s encounter with the bank manager over a loan. The bank manager refuses at first to honor Sammy’s request only to switch up and become jovial after discovering the enormous amount of money in his account. Apart from the lead role of Sammy which is undertaken by a dyed-in-the-wool comedian, characters like Jantamanta (Bolanle Ninalowo), who is Sammy’s Cousin, and Modestus titivate the comedic appeal of the film, with the speech patterns and mannerisms of these characters helping the audience to feel at ease with the film’s social purport.
Bank Alert reminds us that more often than we are quick to admit, the beauty of life lies in the chaos of its existence. Fortune does not always play by rules. You could be poor and miserable this moment, and become stinkingly rich the next one. Whereas Sammy’s honesty cost him his livelihood, he gets financially rewarded when he shelves his moral precepts. Just as in the fate of Modestus, you could be the metaphorical hunter who gets beaten at his own game. You have everything under control until the table is turned and you become the hunted. For as long as the film allows, law enforcement agencies such as the police and military are relegated to the background at the expense of elevating gang life and culture. When Modestus kidnaps Sammy’s daughter, Sammy does not involve the authorities despite having an ex-military officer for a father-in-law. Instead, he convinces his father-in-law to rely on the local expertise of a vigilante group leader and cousin, Jantamanta, to bring back his daughter. Even when they have access to the number plate of the vehicle in which the girl was kidnapped, they do not resort to the police for help.
The glorification of street life and gang culture in the film brings disrepute to state-backed law enforcement structures. The shenanigans are readily accepted as a normal part of the Nigerian society, and the film makes no attempt to mirror authorities like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in any efforts to quell the Modestus-led cybercrime gang. Besides, a man like Uche, who is supposed to be a defender of the law, sacrifices his moral threshold for pleasure. This, in a remotely interesting way, gives us a glimpse of Thomas Hobbes “state of nature”, a situation of the society in which people exist and run their affairs without an overseeing authority. In essence, where there is no higher authority to check the excesses of people, everyone cannot be trusted and there is a free flow of crimes. Human existence in the state of nature is, as Hobbes famously notes, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.
Okey Bakassi’s film is the kind you watch when you want a decent laugh without expecting too much from the plot and style. Similar to the Kitchen Sink Drama movement of the 50s and 60s in the British theater, Bank Alert offers a typical, relatable Nigerian story that is tapped from the domestic existence of her people. But with events happening at a fast pace, most especially the protagonist’s sudden change in fortune, the story is just as incredible as it is probable, bestriding a narrow world of contradiction.