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Movie Review: Abati Oldtaker: Funny, But It Doesn’t Trust Its Own Best Joke
By Ayo Ake
Abati Oldtaker premiered on July 20, 2025. The comedy is built around one simple but cruel joke a man refuses to recognize his poverty. Although his money disappeared a while ago, he still behaves like a big man. His relationships suffer, his business falters, but nothing is able to stop him from showing off wealth. Actually, it is the funny part of the show, not the shouting matches, not the crazy claims, but the discrepancy between Oldtaker and the life that his empty pockets prove.
The creator of the series is Abati Adeotan Abidemi, the screenplay was written by Tolulope Oloko, Razzy is the director, and Abati Abidemi is the producer, and Bamikefa Stella and Quadri Ishola Jimoh are the executive producers, Music score composed by Abati Adeotan Abidemi. The starring roles are played by Abidemi himself, Ojukwu, Skinny Blaq, Nafaruq, Farulee, Porkiyor, Stevho Osha Nwokedi Chinemelum Valentine (“Funny Kante”), and Cynthia Emmanuel Chiamaka. It is safe to say that money (chasing it, pretending to have it, losing it) is the driving force of the whole story.
At first, Oldtaker is full of excessiveness, he is spending money on unnecessary things to prove his point, bragging about some deals that may or may not be true, using his possessions as proof of his importance. Even when it becomes evident that his money is over, he still acts as if it can solve everything. Several scenes are devoted to him showing off the wealth that is already gone to attract back the respect that he once had in Stella’s eyes.
It is the funniest part of the show a man who simply cannot distinguish his money from his identity. Episode 3 perfectly captures this aspect when Oldtaker encounters people who knew him before everything fell apart. It is worse for him to be seen as a poor person than to be poor. He can survive when he is struggling, but he cannot bear the knowledge that someone knows about his struggles.
The series has understood this point. However, it is not always able to rely on the power of comedy. The scenes become too loud when it becomes necessary to show the reaction of the character. Voices get higher, the fight goes on when it is already obvious that there is no place to move further. This is especially evident in the POS-business and job storylines that revolve around the same elements again and again, money disputes, someone calls him lazy, he gets into a shouting match with the client.
Loud Nigerian comedy is not the problem; many shows are as funny as the loud ones. The problem is when loud becomes a replacement for the development of the joke. Abati Oldtaker prefers volume to a good punchline, and after the fourth or fifth episode, one can guess what the joke will look like.
Episode 4 proves this point: Oldtaker’s bragging about his deals, cars, and comeback could have been the opportunity to look deeper into the issue of the gap between real success and the one that he is trying to show to the world. However, the show mostly grabs an easy joke. The only scene that worked is when Oldtaker pressures his friend to sell family land as a part of his forex “opportunity”. It demonstrates how far Oldtaker will go just to keep his image.
However, Episode 5 changes the direction of the story. A missing bag of money brings Oldtaker troubles, he is forced to make a deal with the officer, and he fails to get along with Stella because he is unable to do anything. Now his pretenses have completely disappeared – he is not pretending anymore, he just wants to live through the week.
This change is what the series needs: consequences that are permanent. All his money issues, all his failed relationships, all his mistakes start interacting with each other instead of resetting for another argument. What connects these storylines is simple: Oldtaker cannot accept that his life has changed.
His entourage also suffers from such an approach. Most of the cast consists of people who appear only to become the next obstacle for Oldtaker: the client, the old acquaintance, the partner, someone who has to get the money back. Stella is a little bit different because she is a human cost of his instability, but still, she mostly exists only as a reaction to Oldtaker.
Abidemi is fully aware of Oldtaker’s peculiarities; this man is proud, defensive, always trying to prove something to others, and his face speaks louder than his words. However, the screenplay tries to frame this performance in terms of big, loud confrontations, and the quieter comedy is usually much funnier than the loud one. There is a sharper, more interesting series buried inside Abati Oldtaker, one about a man who has lost his money but cannot let go of the identity that came with it. It is an interesting theme status, masculinity, debts, shame, and all Nigerian obsession with the successful appearance. When Abati Oldtaker looks deep into this issue, it works.
However, too often, the show reaches for another shouting match.
The comedy is good when it lets Oldtaker’s own situation make him embarrassed, not when the script does it. He does not need anyone to shout at him to make the situation awkward for him. Sometimes it is enough to leave him standing there, broke, proud, and sure that everyone should remember the time when he was rich.
