Blacksmith: Alagbede (2024)

Blacksmith: Alagbede

Alagbede (Blacksmith) starts with a bash where Adio and his buddies are dancing. His girlfriend, Omolewa, joins him soon afterwards. Trouble sets in when Omolewa catches the eye of a wealthy man, and Adio and his friends are discriminated against on account of their low socio-economic status. A brawl breaks out and everyone flees into the night.

This incident leaves Wole, Adio’s friend, bitter as he rants about their poverty and how they are treated differently. Adio is happy with his life and dismisses his friend’s complaints but finds out that they were right after Omolewa’s mother forbids her to see Adio and forces her to accept the rich man as her husband.

In pursuit of wealth, Adio visits an herbalist who tells him he has to offer a human life for it. Uncomfortable with this idea, he goes to another herbalist who says there are other ways without having to provide a human sacrifice. The herbalist gives him instructions which he must follow every day or else something bad will happen to him; some of these include not breathing around women at a certain time or bathing outside.

Adio indeed becomes rich after following those tasks just as the herbalist had said but unfortunately it comes with suspicion because of its nature; Omolewa questions where the money came from and he lies saying that Wole recently inherited a huge sum from his grandpa then shared some with him.

He starts acting strangely due to what he was told by the second herbalist thereby raising more eyebrows; upon hearing each other’s stories people think that he did money rituals. This disclosure puts all things dear to Adio’s life at risk: friendship with Wole; passion for blacksmithing; reputation among others but most importantly threatens Omolewa who was the reason behind everything he did.

As much as Blacksmith (Alagbede) is a period drama, it executes well. Within the first half hour of the romantic comedy, you can tell that much thought was put into each scene. The setting was amazing; location manager and production designer did a great job in taking us back to the 90s with cars, houses and technological tools like black-and-white TV that existed then.

The costumes also were on point; Nollywood period movies tend to overdo things when it comes to what people wore during those days but this time around the costume designer did proper research thus creating a wardrobe that reflected every character’s personality while still being true to the era itself.

Storytelling is key in any project and those behind Blacksmith (Alagbede) knew this very well hence they came up with an interesting script. The way events played out in the film kept one engaged as an audience member; we follow Adio from being poor but contented man to becoming rich but threatened man. We see his change in attitude towards different individuals around him basing on how they relate with money after his situation changes; there were no “filler” scenes – every scene counted towards moving forward with story line.

Blacksmith (Alagbede) has good dialogues which are written with just enough wit and grammatical prowess.

To finish, Blacksmith (Alagbede) is an example of good casting. All the actors even the extras were beyond exceptional. Femi Adebayo touched our hearts with his gentle nature as Adio; Kehinde Bankole showed us once again why she’s a force to be reckoned with in Nollywood as Omolewa; Jaiye Kuti made us love her more for being so witty as Iya Aja; while Gabriel Afolayan let us despise Wole without any remorse.

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