Akilla’s Escape
“Akilla’s Escape” starts with a black and white historical montage set to Bob Marley’s “Punky Reggae Party.” In between clips describing the rise of gang violence in Jamaica, we see an older Jamaican man dancing energetically to Marley’s classic reggae banger. This is Akilla Brown (Saul Williams), a well-read, world weary man who runs a Toronto dispensary for a figure known only as “The Greek.”
Given that he’s featured prominently in the opening credits, it’s safe to assume that Akilla has some sort of past life in the underworld. Williams establishes and internalizes that history long before we’re inundated with the nonstop flashbacks that weigh down this movie with their tired, predictable beats; he’s such a commanding presence in every scene, saying so much through his physicality alone that all any backstory could provide feels moot this is a guy who has seen things and been to terrible places but fears that if he doesn’t honor his sense of compassion, he’ll end up right back there.
It is this compassion or rather his awareness of it being endangered which forms the central conceit of director Charles Officer’s film, though its script by Wendy Motion Brathwaite frustratingly ignores or downplays everything else that might’ve given their movie something new or interesting to say.
Take for instance a great scene between Akilla and Benji (Colm Feore), the man who grows the strains of weed upon which they have built their success over the past decade: now that marijuana is legal in Canada, businesses like theirs are coming under fire from authorities. They touch on this briefly while discussing new methods employed by government enforcers to destroy side hustles even more criminal than those hustles themselves were hence why Akilla wants out now; Benji finds it ironic. It was timely; I was engaged; then they drop it for a robbery.
Of course, it’s a setup; the traitor ends up getting hacked to pieces with a machete by one of the robbers. One robber, Sheppard (Thamela Mpumlwana), fails to finish off Akilla and is thus overpowered and left behind by his crew, who take off with $150,000 of The Greek’s money and product, leaving Sheppard to take the fall. The incident was caught on tape though, so Akilla has to go into detective mode in order to save his own ass.
After saving Sheppard from certain death at Jimmy’s (Bruce Ramsay) hands Jimmy being the Greek’s enforcer Akilla feels an instant protective kinship with the young, inexperienced gang member; he sees himself in him; these parallels are made explicit by Mpumlwana also playing the younger Akilla in flashbacks; this is distracting; this is too much on the nose ness even for me.
Mpumlwana is not bad at either role; as Sheppard, he’s a believable deer in the headlights, and as Akilla, he effectively signals the desire to do right that Williams will quietly manifest in his eyes and face. The problem is that the flashbacks are presented as a puzzle where we must piece together how Akilla’s kingpin father, Clinton (Ronnie Rowe), wound up as the hideously bloody corpse we see in the opening scene.
Rowe is intense, but this storyline does not tell us about the Jamaican gangs Clinton (and by extension, Akilla) were beholden to at the time. There’s an obvious parallel between Akilla and Sheppard being unknowing gang members, but we have to wade through story elements that have been beaten into the ground by so many other movies that they’ve lost any power. More than once I had to ask myself if I hadn’t already reviewed this film.
Based on what gets released, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think being Black was nothing but being a slave or having a dangerous side hustle. It’s as disheartening as it is dull and incorrect.
But I digress. The performances in the Akilla-Sheppard plotline render the flashbacks redundant. I don’t think Williams’ memorable work would have been any different had we not known the details of the demons Akilla carries. There’s another very good scene between him and The Greek (Theresa Tova), whom we discover is actually a tough woman who looks like she shares equal mileage with Akilla in the underworld.
Tova does more with an arched eyebrow than pages of dialogue could describe, and both actors know what kind of crime movie cliché they’re employing and lean into it with an enjoyable gusto.The robbery story is full of watchable two-hander scenes featuring elder Akilla , including several with Sheppard’s concerned-and-fiery aunt, Faye (Donisha Rita Claire Prendergast) and others with fellow enforcers who come out for the climax of the film.
About that climax it’s exactly what you think it’s going to be, but “Akilla’s Escape” denies you seeing what goes down and only shows its aftermath. I was OK with this, though I know it’s probably a letdown for many viewers. It was the one time we’re left to fend for ourselves. Throughout the film we’re offered several potential explanations for its title, i.e. what constitutes the titular event. I immediately assumed it would be death.
I won’t tell you if that’s right or wrong, but Williams’ last scene is far more haunting than the film deserves.“Akilla’s Escape” is undone by its own lack of faith in the viewer, opting to explicitly tell rather than rely on its fine actors to show us who their characters are.
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