Questions for producers of Chief Daddy 2

Chief Daddy 2: Going for Broke which premiered on Netflix on January 1, 2022, is the sequel to Chief Daddy which was released in 2108. Both films are directed by Niyi Akinmolayan and produced by Ebony Life Films. If you’ve been on any kind of social media space especially Twitter since the year began, you must have heard about Chief Daddy 2 and the mess it is in fact, I’m sure that even people who are not on social media must’ve heard the reverberations. The tweets against the film can make a bestselling book. So, why am I asking questions and not knocks or questions and knocks-knocks? I’m holding out hope that there’s a good explanation for the disjointed story that’s Chief Daddy 2. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have bothered to see the film not after reading bad reviews after bad reviews. Perhaps, I’m a closet masochist. But you convince yourself: “It can’t be that bad. Or how bad can it be?” Well, Chief Daddy 2 is so ‘bad’ it’s good. I mean.

Before watching Chief Daddy 2, I had to re-watch the first Chief Daddy to be in perfect sync with the sequel. Bad as many say the first one was, it had a story one could at least follow. Its challenge was having too many big-name stars with not enough to do. It is clearly a case of ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ as the cliché goes. But still, all that pales into insignificance when compared to Chief Daddy 2. I’m suddenly reminded of these words from Charlotte Perkins Gillman in her short story “Yellow Wallpaper”: “I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. it is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance, they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”

What’s the story of Chief Daddy? Chief Daddy (Taiwo Obileye) supposedly a billionaire, suddenly dies in part 1 of Chief Daddy. Children and mistresses begin to come out of the woodwork with the knowledge of the family lawyers Tega and Remi Castle of Castle and Castle (RMD and Dakore Egbuson), who are trying to ensure these people get a piece of the billions. Part of their mandate is to get everyone together under the same roof until the will is read. It’s the ensuing confusion and drama that’s to make for comedy. That appears to have been the plan which is what the first Chief Daddy was trying to pull off. Did it succeed? That’s a different story altogether. Still, as far as stories go, it wasn’t the worst one.

However, we should’ve been a little worried when Rahama Sadau appeared out of nowhere when the first Chief Daddy ended. Not that her appearance was any clearer in Chief Daddy 2. Whatever was wrong in the first Chief Daddy only multiplied exponentially in its sequel. Whereas in the first film there was some kind of story, what do you think happens in Chief Daddy 2? Shouldn’t the story have been continued? Or as many people are asking: na by force to do a sequel? The link between this sequel and the Wedding Party sequel (also directed by Niyi Akinmolayan) is not lost on anyone paying attention. If for nothing, the inexplicable Dubai trip. Chief Daddy 2 is packed with even more big names with nothing to do.

What’s the story of Chief Daddy 2? That’s one of the questions I have for the makers of the skit movie (for lack of a better word). Let’s try to piece something together: Laila (Rahama Sadau) takes over Chief Daddy’s company, Beecroft Industries as CEO, and ensures the rest of the family don’t get the money that’s been willed to them. Apart from the confusion of how she suddenly came to have all that power, wasn’t an administrator appointed for the chief’s estate? The family is divided as they make some attempts to fight back but there’s no story there. The fight could’ve been taken to the boardroom if anyone in the production team knew how companies worked.

Who can explain the decision to change Zainab Balogun’s character Ireti, almost to the point we can’t recognize her? In the first part, we’re told she’s a Harvard-trained psychologist. She sought to make peace between family members in the first film. How did she turn into this vicious vlogger, who’s like the baby Linda Ikeji and Stella Dimoko-Korkus would’ve had? And her only victims appear to be her family which includes her mother. She attacks them non-stop and there are never really any repercussions. Her mother Nike Williams (Shaffy Bello) was a designer of sorts in the first Chief Daddy but in this sequel, she has now joined forces with Teni Beecroft (Funke Akindele) and Tinu Beecroft (Kate Henshaw) to sell clothes. Is this supposed to be as a result of their supposedly being broke? Is there any self-respecting boutique in Lagos where three grown-ass women are cooped in what looks like storage space purporting to sell clothes? Do you mean they couldn’t afford to hire even one shop girl? O ga o! I’m not even going to talk about Kate Henshaw and Funke Akindele’s characters deciding to marry the same man as sisters. All he had to do was buy them two houses, with well-manicured lawns…Even their billionaire dad’s house had patches where grass didn’t grow. And this man, a PA or something (Uzor Arukwe) like that to Laila was all of a sudden so rich he can afford to marry two daughters of a billionaire?

I can almost feel a headache coming but I must ask one or two more questions. Who had the not-so-bright idea for the Dubai trip? People who are supposedly so poor the matriarch now celebrate her birthday like some poor village woman? Speaking of which, that skit about her birthday like most of the other skits in the film doesn’t tie in with any part of the film. Forget about believability, why was it not tied to any other part of the film? And for some reason, we are to believe that she was the poorest out of everybody? The bit about Mawuli Gavor as Dammie the world-conquering footballer and a contrived injury is laughable. Did I say laughable? It wasn’t funny. Then his relationship with Adaora (Beverly Naya)) was painful to watch. Please don’t mind if I mix my tenses. Chief Daddy 2 has brain-draining power.

Did I see Ini Edo in this sequel? I am not going to talk about Bro Shagi. However, for what it’s worth, Falz as Femi Beecroft aka Famzy and his ride or die girlfriend Sandra (Beverly Osu) tried to make parts bearable. From where I sit, Chief Daddy 2 looked like it had no director. Or perhaps, there were too many directors, who knows.

Onoshe Nwabuikwu, AIRTIME columnist is a renowned TV/Film critic, and Film scholar. She also has experience in Advertising as a senior Copywriter and Corporate Communications as Communications consultant.