The Fragile World of “Sin: Blackout”  

The split screen opens with three shots of a bustling Lagos scene, briefly immersing us in the city’s chaos. A radio broadcast reports a shootout at the court premises, prompting spontaneous reactions from commuters. The camera cuts to Tosin (played by Toni Tones), accompanied by Leo (Gideon Okeke), a personal assistant from The Consortium, returning home from her meeting with Black. The family grieve  the death of their beloved father and husband Jide Sina, but the thickening plot soon overshadows this. A recap of past events—better suited to a series format—plays out while Tosin’s voiceover vows to protect her children at all costs. But narration in Sin: Blackout is not Tosin’s alone. It becomes a shared role with Leo, whose voice at one point overlays a sequence inside a drug factory. This second installment of the Sin franchise, directed by Yemi Morafa and Dimeji Ajibola, follows Tosin’s leadership as a Consortium associate and her alliance with Leo and the DEA to dismantle Black’s drug empire.

There are new things to worry about in Sin: Blackout. One is the romance between Tosin and Leo, an aspect of the story that  is not only fluffy for narrative material but also feels like a means to an end for the individuals. The on-screen romance is meant to simulate the kind that usually happens between workplace colleagues: covert, rash, and driven by infatuation. Here Tosin does not seem to make any considerable efforts to hide the situationship from her siblings, and the alacrity with which she moves on without caring about drawing unnecessary concerns from her children and loved ones makes us question how much love she had for her late husband. But then, it’s difficult to make a case for the authenticity of the Tosin-Leo synergy. As much as the film expects us to look beyond the circumstances of their encounter and embrace the affair, we cannot ignore the possibility of Tosin merely using Leo to temporarily fill the physical and emotional gap left by the loss of her husband and bring Black to book.  Also, the ease with which Leo gets convinced to turn his back on his boss Black within a short time of his association with Tosin undermines his professionalism and experience as a mercenary and combatant.

The film introduces a new adversary, Lil’ Baz, played by Chidi Mokeme. The character  is simple: a drug-dealing local gang leader who antagonizes the Tosin-led team and, by extension, Black’s operations. Most crime narratives have such characters. Mokeme, too, has taken up similar roles in recent Nollywood projects—from Scar in Shanty Town to Gaza in Tokunbo and Teacher in To Kill A Monkey. It is quite easy for the audience to connect with this gangster archetype. We learn that Lil’ Baz has been a bug since the reign of Jide, but for someone that has longed posed a “threat” to a syndicate as The Consortium, it is ridiculous that he has not built a network that is equally strong enough to protect himself and his interests. What the film reveals instead is an underdeveloped character who, besides his failed one-off attempt at assassinating the protagonist, gets dispatched easily and falls short of the relentless and ruthless notoriety that his  villainhood requires.

Like the previous part, this installment of Sin does too little to show and justify the extensive transcontinental underground powers of Black and The Consortium. Conversations amongst the detectives and a few scenes of stakeholders’ meetings suggest that the syndicate has effectively operated in the developed worlds of Europe and America, extending its operations to Africa where it is supposedly assured of a larger market. If that is so, why doesn’t the film show us how they beat security checks to distribute their products around the country and continent rather than reducing these complexities to roundtable talks? Even so, a criminal organization of this scale would not have thrived effectively in a country like Nigeria without the help of morally bankrupt highly placed politicians, but there are no clear indications of this in the film. Only a brief revelation of the DEA boss being an accessory to the syndicate comes close to depicting systemic corruption at the corridors of power. Much of the narrative shows the enforcement agency tailing and investigating Black without caring about other influential associates and stakeholders, an oversight that skews its sociopolitical thrust.

The positive takeaway from Sin: Blackout is its mild element of unpredictability arising from how events turn out after Black finds out his daughter is dead. This is fairly commendable. An average film would probably have him fall for the bait of his daughter being used as a lure or possibly have him decipher the trick only to fall prey too soon to some alternative plans that the audience are oblivious of. Well, he eventually runs out of wits, as most Nollywood productions are wont to punish evildoers. It’s just that one could not have easily earlier predicted him singlehandedly and successfully embarking on a murderous spree before he is taken down.

The Sin franchise hints at a richer story than it delivers. With more attention to pacing, funding, and a carefully crafted story, it probably would have appealed as a limited series, exploring the mechanics of organized crime, law enforcement, and the psychological depth of its characters. For now, it is just another contribution to the growing Nollywood crime thriller canon, best appreciated as a cinematic reflection on social ills and less as a technically satisfactory narrative.