The Waiter is just AY’s usual shtick, except it is less funny than ever. Akpos himself has never been less relevant in a film where he is supposedly the lead. If this does not make a case for the retirement of his character, we may never see the last of him.
By Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku
It has been a decade since we first met Akpos. It was the box-office-hit debut movie produced by Nigerian comedian, Ayo “AY” Makun, titled 30 Days in Atlanta (2014). Thanks to the title, I can remember that Akpos won a thirty-day trip to Atlanta, United States, but I honestly do not remember anything about that film other than the fact that it starred AY as Akpos, alongside “the” Ramsey Nouah.
Between that film and The Waiter (2024), AY has produced three other “Akpos” films (A Trip to Jamaica (2016); 10 Days in Sun City (2017); and Christmas in Miami (2021)) and the three films in the Merry Men franchise. I remember next to nothing about any of these films (except Christmas in Miami and Merry Men 3 both of which I conveniently avoided watching). So, my satisfaction is that I will not have to remember much about The Waiter, the fifth Akpos installment, directed by Toka McBaror (Merry Men: The Real Yoruba Demons (2018); Dark October (2023)).
In The Waiter, Akpos is once again a struggling man, but this time, he does not have to leave Nigeria to be found by trouble. He has taken a job as a waiter serving an event at a hotel where the Minister of Welfare and Poverty Alleviation (Shaffy Bello) is launching a poverty alleviation scheme. But before the event can go into full swing, the hotel comes under siege at the hands of terrorists led by Tonye Bright (Bucci Franklin), a charismatic leader with a military background, political grievances, and Robin Hood ideals.
With the hotel on lockdown, terrorists casing the hotel floors, and a hostage situation playing out in the event hall, Akpos, in exchange for financial reward, attempts to help protect his boss (Regina Daniels), with help from the hotel’s head of security (Deyemi Okanlawon). Meanwhile, a police squad surrounds the building, led by an all-talk-without-action police inspector (Toke Makinwa, “with great eyebrows”) who herself has to answer to a superintendent (Kunle Remi) whose only real interest is the media attention he’s eager to revel in.
It’s a familiar premise that can still work as a good popcorn movie, at least, even if it brings nothing original to the table. But The Waiter is a restlessly awkward action comedy thriller that is unable to blend its chosen genres and thoroughly fails to pull off any of them, anyway.
In The Waiter, we get a hostage movie with no stakes and no thrills, an action film with bloated but irrelevant action, and a comedy with rare laughs. An exaggerated clichéd mess where characters say and do what the screenplay imagines characters would say and do in an action comedy if they’d never seen one.
And yet, The Waiter takes itself too seriously, and not in the sense of comedy as a serious genre but in the sense of comedy that wants to be taken seriously without itself treating the genre with seriousness. And so, it inflates its importance.
The action scenes in this film exist solely for the sake of having action scenes, but they are approached like they matter to the plot when they simply do not. Bad jokes are written like grand statements.
And the film attempts to satirise the political class—the minister is a superficial woman, the labour chairman (Uchemba Williams) is a corrupt man whose name has become synonymous with hypocrisy, and the foreign humanitarian visitor (Chris Attoh, playing a cringey American) is a man who dresses in Nigerian traditional attire—but even the anti-politician socio-political message does not truly matter to this film that just happens to have a real-life politician cameo.
Character hierarchy matters even less. Akpos is supposed to be the main character here, the character from whom the film gets its title. But the screenplay prioritises the villain and gives Akpos, the supposed hero, very little to do; he mostly just gets in ridiculous fights that have no real value other than to allow him huff and puff and shout “Una dey crase?” He is nothing more than a caricature—very much like the film itself—with characterisation so devoid of complexity that he cannot possibly present an idealistic challenge to the villain even if he tries (thankfully, he does not). And his antics neither influence the direction of the plot nor register him as an actual physical threat to the villain.
Perhaps, it is something to be grateful for that the screenplay avoids pitting him directly against Tonye Bright beyond an inconsequential passing moment. AY is no match for Bucci Franklin, after all, not even on AY’s home turf. Franklin is unsurprisingly the standout performer, playing the villain (more like anti-hero) with a grounded presence. But even the sun’s light can be blocked in an eclipse, and his talent alone is not enough to save this trainwreck.
At least, he does not pretend that there is comedy in the role and lines his character has been given. And that is a wise choice, seeing as this film has more than a fair share of comedians who just display their usual but tired comic gimmicks, and dramatic actors who have no comedic chops trying too hard to be funny. Though some credit has to be given to Kunle Remi who does have some comedic timing, even if he has to make do with material that is simply too silly to be funny.
The Waiter is just AY’s usual shtick, except it is less funny than ever. Akpos himself has never been less relevant in a film where he is supposedly the lead. If this does not make a case for the retirement of his character, we may never see the last of him.
And so, while it is comforting that The Waiter is too forgettable to take up memory space, the mere thought that there may be more of this is truly unbearable.
Rating: 1.5/5
*The Waiter premiered in Nigerian cinemas on 20th December 2024 and is now streaming on Netflix and Circuits.
Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku is a writer, film critic, TV lover, and occasional storyteller writing from Lagos. She has a master’s degree in law but spends most of her time watching, reading about and discussing films and TV shows. She’s particularly concerned about what art has to say about society’s relationship with women. Connect with her on X @Nneka_Viv