Akay Mason’s “Red Circle” is a Thoughtful Drama that Doesn’t Add Up

The Yoruba people have a saying: “Sátídé ti ọ dà, àti Jímọ́h láti mọ́.” Although there are different iterations of this saying, what they loosely translate to is that tomorrow’s greatness is foreshadowed in the details of today. This often-recycled axiom captures my thoughts after watching the trailer for Akay Mason’s Red Circle which has hitherto been gaining uplifting comments and praise for its unconventional marketing. That trailer, with all its supposed thrills, mystery and suspense, conveyed nothing narratively and thematically significant. Surely, on watching the trailer one meets stray characters, get introduced to decisive emotional moments, casually know the film’s genre and have a general knowledge of the film’s tone and mood. But, its incoherence gives room for a lackluster feel.

This tacky and dull narrative trails through the film too. Written by Abdul Tijani-Ahmed and co-produced by Nora Awolowo who doubles as the cinematographer, Red Circle is nestled on Fikayo Holloway’s (Folu Storms) story, her silent rebellion against her parents (Femi Branch and Bukky Wright) and quest for self discovery and independence from her family business. Fikayo’s privileged background offers her comfort and leisure but she wants to build an admirable career in journalism. A decision that often makes her parents sneer and get defensive probably because of their illegal dealings which gets subsequently revealed. Unmindful of their response, Fikayo continually embraces her decision, leading her to work with Fregene (Patrick Diabuah), her editor and boss and Mustapha (Timini Egbuson), her co-worker and sex partner at Lagoon Media. When her sole friend, Venita (Omowunmi Dada) meets a tragic end, her journalistic instinct sets in, leading her to unearth secrets of not just her parents but that of the country’s most powerful cult. 

On paper, Red Circle must have appeared as a concise script. But, onscreen it’s as fluffy as they come because Tijani-Ahmed’s script doesn’t know when to be frugal and expansive. After Venita’s tragic end, characters and scenes are thrown around just to keep the story going. The script has the right amount of comic (embodied by Silifa played by Lizzy Jay) and romance scenes (embodied by Mustapha and Officer Kalu’s [Tobi Bakre] admiration for Fikayo) but for the political, emotional and social heft and depth the film aimed for, these scenes flatten the film’s narrative and psychological depth. While Tijani-Ahmed’s script couldn’t chop out the narrative debris, Ayomikun Oteju, the film’s editor, couldn’t trim off these excesses inhibiting a compact narrative. The logical explanation for this narrative flaw might be that the editor or director or whoever calls the final shot during post production isn’t keenly aware of the emotional tone each scene is supposed to achieve or convey. Comic scenes are placed too close to emotional ones. Romance scenes are closely hugging tragic scenes. This, in the long run, affects the film’s tonal and emotional intensity. Thus, the writing, directing and editing doesn’t allow for audience reflection.  

The film however maintains some consistency. Oshisco (Lateef Adedimeji), Venita’s self-acclaimed boyfriend, maintains his fierce love and protection of Venita. Casual and calculated misogynistic comments from the police officer (by Ibrahim Suleiman) and Mustapha are constant that it instinctively becomes their defining characteristics. The consistency of a singular song which foreshadows tragedy or bad occurrence is a commendable technical and sonical choice. This singular choice helps guide audience expectations and by extension strengthen the impact of scenes the song featured in. 

Red Circle is relatively simple yet it distracts itself with important but inconsequential scenes, characters and information. A patchwork of political attack, blunt criticism of misogyny and patriarchy and a deep dive into institutional corruption, Red Circle attempts to tackle all these with a single stone. But, like a sensitive bird, these themes have learnt to evade the capture of an unsteady hunter. Thus, what we have is an isolated outlook at these socially and politically narratives pertinent to Fikayo’s quest for Venita’s murderer.  

The success of a film like Red Circle lies in three hands. In the hands of a frugal writer and careful script editor, the script will have loose narrative fat. In the hand of a concise director, the film will have been more compact. And in the hands of a scene-by-scene conscious editor, the inconsequential details added during writing and directing will have been pedantically trimmed off. None of that seems to exist here. The absence of these three in the long run, give the film the air of an aircraft that fails to launch despite having required elements for a successful takeoff.