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As Nigerians continue to heap praises on Chidi Mokeme for his outstanding performance as Scar in Netflix’s new thriller series Shanty Town, movie fans have crowned Makanaki, the character played by Nigerian rapper and songwriter Remilekun ‘Reminisce’ Khalid Safaru, as their most outstanding Nollywood thriller ‘bad guy’ of the present age.
This was revealed in the result of a poll on Netng’s social media pages asking fans to crown their Nollywood thriller ‘bad guy’. Over 400 (66%) of 600 movie enthusiasts who responded to the poll on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter crowned Makanaki while the majority of the remaining 34% opted for Shanty Town’s Scar. The list also consists of Brotherhood’s Akin (Tobi Bakre), Blood Sister’s Uncle B (Ramsey Nouah), Far From Home’s Oga Rambo (Bolanle Ninalowo) and Dags Kurukeme (Frankincense Eche-Ben) from Africa Magic series Brethren.
Makanaki is a feisty, notorious and menacing gang leader who first appeared in the Kemi Adetiba-produced political thriller King of Boys (2018). With the instalment’s success, an episodic sequel titled King of Boys: The Return of the King followed in 2021 and gave room for Makanaki to amass more screen time and tap into the lengths and breadth of his character.
True to his lines in his song ‘3rd World Thug’: “We gat a couple guns, but we prefer machetes…To ba be ma ko won wa ba e pelu forty seater” (If you brag, I’ll bring my boys with a forty seater), Reminisce brought his hip-hop badassery to play in the King of Boys sequel, settling in seamlessly into the gritty, frigid and villainous Makanaki.
“It is Makanaki for me considering that he is a music artiste and that was his first movie role and he embodied the role so well,” a fan said in the poll which reached over 70,000 accounts and was shared by more than 150 people across Netng’s social media platforms.
“Nobody comes close to Makanaki. This comparison is an insult to Maka! Scar is weak na, I no see any action… just shouting, overdoing and too much make up,” another fan said.
“I’ll crown Makanaki anyday, anytime, Reminisce bodied that character so good you can hardly tell it was acting, others you can still tell it’s acting but it’s great acting even if they don’t come close to Maka,” said another movie enthusiast.
Scar, from the Dimeji-Ajibola-directed Shanty Town, is not so far off. Since its debut on Netflix on January 20, 2023, it has been driving conversations based on the excellent character of the main cast — Chidi Mokeme. After a long hiatus from the screen attributed to a condition called Bell’s Palsy, Mokeme emerged to reclaim his place as one of the brilliant Nollywood actors who charted a path for the newcomers.
His representation of the unyielding and rugged kingpin, Scar, has been described by fans as stellar. And one can’t but applaud him for coming out of his medical condition to make a big impression and flourish on a high-budget Nollywood movie.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, actors like Hanks Anuku, Sam Dede, Gentle Jack and the late Ernest Asuzu were some of the go-to stars for the ‘bad guy’ role in Nollywood movies.
In any case, Makanaki, according to fans, now reigns supreme. With more Nollywood producers privileging thrillers and series to tell more exciting stories and pack in more content, however, it won’t be long before we see another character come with all the grit and brawn to try and dethrone the crown prince of the ‘bad guy’ kingdom — a fictitious kingdom that we hate to love.
The post Netng Poll: Fans Crown ‘King of Boys’ Makanaki As Nollywood Thriller ‘Bad Guy’ appeared first on Nigerian Entertainment Today.
Source: TheNet
