Once upon a time, I recapped an insane Christian book that claimed the devil created football as a tool to destroy humanity. The article’s popularity made me turn my recaps into a weekly series named “So You Don’t Have To“, where I find batshit crazy pieces of media (books, movies, etc) and recap them for your pleasure.
Today, I will be recapping the 2021 Nollywood adventure movie, ‘Day of Destiny.‘
The movie starts in the year 2020. Bankole and Ifeoma (played by Norbert Young and Iretiola Doyle respectively) are a married couple telling their daughter, Helena, the story of the first time they met 20 years prior at a Democracy day party. This meet-cute is shown to the viewers in a flashback and the characters are played by younger actors.
Even though this flashback takes place in the year 2000, nothing in the scene — costumes or decor — reflects that. Well, young Ifeoma is wearing an afro wig so I guess that counts (?)
“This scene takes place in the past? Throw an afro wig on the female character’s head and keep it moving.” – this movie’s costume designer.
The story is interrupted and it’s revealed that the family is moving out of their house because they’re now poor as shit. The reason for their recent poverty is conveniently shown on their living room TV. I say “conveniently” because the TV legit just turns on by itself, shows a breaking news broadcast, and goes off.
Bankole and Ifeoma are university professors who, along with 45 of their colleagues, have been fired by the governor of Lagos State, Coker Adeniran, for reasons that are never made clear. The movie really wants you to know that Governor Coker is a piece of shit human being and uses this news broadcast to hammer that point.
Not only is Coker in the news for firing 47 lecturers and sexual harassment allegations (peep the headline at the bottom of the screen), it’s also announced that he’s also being interrogated by EFCC for corruption charges. LMAO!
In the next scene, we’re properly introduced to Bankole and Ifeoma’s teenage sons, Chidi (Olumide Oworu) and Rotimi (Denola Grey). Chidi is stubborn and is the family black sheep, while Rotimi is a nerd. You can tell Rotimi is a nerd because he’s wearing a sweater, uses reading glasses, and has asthma.
While loading boxes into the moving truck, Chidi and Rotimi find out that their parents used to be friends with Governor Coker when they discover an old picture of him and their parents at the independence day party from the opening scene. When they’re done packing and are driving to their new house, Chidi asks their parents how they ended up being broke lecturers if they used to be friends with a man who went on to be a governor. Their parents are understandably pissed and a small argument starts. In the middle of this, Chidi reveals that he has dropped out of law school to study music, causing their father to almost crash the car in shock.
They don’t actually hit anything but the car is somehow damaged and they now need a mechanic. After whooping Chidi’s ass…
…but before sending Chidi and Rotimi off to find a mechanic, their mother reveals the reason their father and Governor Coker’s friendship died: Governor Coker wanted their father to do some shady political shit back in the day but their dad said no.
But Chidi is like:
Chidi and Rotimi ask a passerby for directions to the nearest mechanic and he points them to a giant Amityville Horror-looking house. Rotimi is like:
Rotimi would be great at “So You Don’t Have To.”
But Chidi is like:
It becomes more apparent when they walk in that this isn’t a mechanic’s shop but some kind of shrine. They meet the shrine’s occupant, a man named Babayaro (Broda Shaggi).
Babayaro tells them that he can change their destiny and Chidi decides to change their family’s destiny so they won’t be poor anymore. Rotimi is against this and just wants to leave but Chidi is stubborn as hell and gives Babayaro N5000 to start the spell. Babayaro casts the spell and tosses them into a CGI cave-like thing that I believe is supposed to be the space-time continuum.
All the people at Industrial Light & Magic were found dead.
Chidi and Rotimi land in the same spot 20 years in the past, causing the man who was in charge of the shrine at the time to hilariously die of a heart attack due to the shock of not knowing what the fuck is going on.
The boys don’t know they’ve time-travelled at this point so they run out of the building. Something is off but they can’t yet tell because they’re still disoriented.
Obvious CGI garden is obvious.
After running as far away from the shrine as they can, the boys end up at a bar/video club and eventually figure out that they’re in the year 2000 when Chidi notices the date in a newspaper. Chidi points out that the day they’re in is the 29th of May 2000 i.e the day their parents met for the first time at the party that their father turned down the shady offer from Governor (then aspiring politician) Coker. He suggests that they go to the party and convince their father to take the deal. They get to the venue of the party with the help of a cab driver named Captain C (Toyin Abraham).
The boys find out that the deal their father turned down was an offer to become Coker’s uncle’s personal lawyer, which would’ve involved hella shady dealings. Chidi notices that their father is still sceptical about the offer so he goes up to his father (claiming to be someone named Adekunle Gold) and is like:
Patting themselves on the back for a job well done, they return to the white house so Babayaro can send them back. They meet a Babayaro who is 20 years younger and inexperienced because his father, Babayaro Snr (the old man who died of a heart attack when the boys first landed in the year 2000), never finished training him in the mystic arts.
They convince him to send them back to 2020 by giving him a cellphone (without the charger so you know it’s going to die at some point) and instructing him on how to go about it based on what they saw future Babayaro do. After a series of comically disastrous tries, it works and they crash land in what looks like a teenage girl’s bedroom in 2020. They think it’s their sister’s room but then, a set of twin girls they don’t know come out of the bathroom and start screaming:
They run into their father on their way out and are relieved to see him but he has no idea who they are. They find out, via the internet, that they’ve inadvertently created an alternate 2020 timeline, in which they don’t exist because their father accepted the shady job offer and never married their mother. They were never born. The resulting fear from their precarious predicament causes the boys to hurl insults at each other.
And then they engage in an unintentionally hilarious fight.
What is going? LMAO
A fight that ends with Rotimi almost dying of an asthma attack.
In an attempt to fix things, they find Babayaro and he informs them that because they were never born in this timeline, they have only a few hours before they fade away from existence. He tells them that no one can change their destiny twice and that the only way to fix things is to find someone else who wants to change their destiny and hijack their spell. So they go find their mother.
In this timeline, their mother is an activist who spends her time protesting against corrupt politicians. She wears a beret everywhere because the movie’s costume designer heard the word “activist” and immediately dressed Iretiola Doyle up as Che Guevara.
She also never married and adopted a baby girl named Helen, who, for some reason, is played by the actress who plays Helena in the original timeline. Their relationship is fucking awful.
Helen storms out of the house after a fight with Activist Ifeoma and is approached by the boys who try to convince her to help them. She initially isn’t interested in hearing about time travel and alternate timelines but stops to listen after Rotimi shows her a picture of the family on his phone. She agrees to help them because “this seems better than going back home to fight with my mom.” And I’m just like, what if the picture was photoshopped and these are kidnappers???
They return to Babayaro, who sends them back to the year 2000, telling them to just let things play out normally so the original timeline can be restored.
So they appear at the party. Chidi is frantic now because Rotimi is starting to fade but Helen doesn’t give a shit, which is wild, seeing as she just discovered time travel for the first time.
Young Ifeoma is sexually harassed by Coker’s creepy uncle (Jide Kosoko) when she goes to collect the donation he promised her for the orphanage she runs. Rotimi starts to lose colour so Chidi decides to speed up events. He gets Young Bankole to go outside while Helen goes to get young Ifeoma. Helen finds Young Ifeoma crying because of her experience with Coker’s uncle and convinces her to go fuck him for being a creep.
A lot happens from here. Chidi convinces Young Bankole to turn down the offer. Young Bankole and Young Ifeoma meet and everything goes as planned. Babayaro sends the boys back to 2020 and the timeline is restored. Except that now, original timeline Helena remembers everything that happened in the other timeline. How? No one knows. Look, this movie stressed me out. I’m done.
