[The Film Blog] Funny, smart, and a little extra: David Oyelowo brings everything Nigerian in “Gringo”

David Oyelowo

Years before David Oyelowo became a Hollywood star, his teacher at the City and Islington College had suggested that he should take up acting. Oyelowo was studying theatre studies then, which he finished and later enrolled with the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). From working with the Royal Shakespeare Company which started in 1999, Oyelowo has for years flourished in stage work and productions, playing King Henry VI in the Shakespeare’s trilogy of plays and becoming the first black actor to play an English king.

Born in England to Nigerian parents, Oyelowo’s father had always told him that theirs was a royal family, a claim that the actor initially discounted. “I was like, ‘yeah, whatever.’” Oyelowo said in a 2015 interview with NPR Fresh Air with Terry Gross. “But then we shipped up in Nigeria and we lived on Oyelowo Street, named after my family and we lived on the Oyelowo compound…it was a very bizarre cultural thing to adapt to, going back.”

Oyelowo belongs to a visible league of Nigerian Hollywood actors born in America or England, mostly affiliating themselves with the mainstream culture of those climes. Since starring as Martin Luther King Jnr. in the critically acclaimed biopic Selma, and visiting Nigeria with the film’s cast in 2015, nothing has subsequently connected Oyelowo to his roots. Well, until now. In Gringo, the action comedy directed by Nash Edgerton, Oyelowo plays Harold Soyinka, a Nigerian operations supervisor working for Cannabax Technologies Inc, a company that has developed the “weed pill,” which is medical marijuana that has been simplified into pill form.

The corporate world that Harold inhabits is a lot of things that he doesn’t know about. His friend and boss Richard Husk (Joel Edgerton) is merging the company, sleeping with Harold’s wife Bonnie (Thandie Newton), and having office quickies with Elaine Markinson (Charlize Theron), who also happens to be Harold’s boss. It’s convoluted and messy, more for Harold than anyone else because he’s getting perilously close to being bankrupt. In all of these, Gringo feels like a confluence of Hollywood and Nollywood – Harold is the quintessential Nigerian, his accent his nearly flawless and tempered, and the ability to crank out humour from almost everything is unmistakable and familiar.

Gringo is all about obstacles and tribulations, and Harold faces them with an unbeatable Nigerian spirit. When he accompanies Richard and Elaine to Mexico to handle the manufacturing of the weed pill, Harold stays back faking that he’s been kidnapped to benefit from the company’s policy of 2 million dollars if anything should happen to him conducting business internationally. But things go terribly awry, as he truly gets kidnapped by a dangerous cartel helmed by a Mexican drug lord called Black Panther, who holds a grudge against Harold’s bosses and their company, for cutting them off their plans on creating the weed pill.

How Harold wriggles out from his captors is funny and smart. When Richard sends his mercenary brother Mitch (Sharlto Copley) to retrieve Harold from Mexico, they both become friends, and Harold, knowing the truth about Richard and his affair with his wife, conspires with Mitch to ask for more money from Richard so that they can split it among themselves. Though in a bad situation (he’s still in Mexico with the Black Panther chasing him), Harold takes advantage of the opportunities in his predicament. I’d have done same too. Gringo has a 39% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but this is a review based on character interpretation.

Oyelowo as Harold is smart, entrepreneurial (he later sets up a sea bar named after him), and I was particularly looking forward to sharing a warm Nigerian bond with the actor through Gringo. And I got just that.

 

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