By Ali Baylay

To put it bluntly, this is a movie that attempts at the inner state of mind of the center character, Sandra (Genevivie Nnaji), but we never get acquainted with her motivation for the kind of rebel without cause behavior of Sandra.

Nwafor Anayo’s For Better or For Worse (2003), starts with Sandra  entering her father’s  living-room-turned-dance-hall, full of partying guests, and with her nose in the air, she weeds unfavorable members from the guests and ask them out. And even as she takes the floor, no one dares join her, until she beckons them to the floor. Here, we are introduced to Sandra as an insolent, cigarette-smoking rich girl who attends a parochial school, in a rundown neighborhood, where she’s hailed as a queen.

She’s heedless to the warnings and threats of both her father and a step-mother she dares not set eyes upon. There’s not a single attribute for the wanton behavior Sandra carries on in this movie, only for the fact that her mother is past, how long, story doesn’t tell,  but raised by her father and his second wife.

Sandra goes from one self-destructive behavior to another. She steals money and other belongings from her father, buys drugs and throws elaborate hotel pool-party, and in a drunken stupor, she hits a child  with her car almost to death. At this point, Sandra seems possessed by a demon, but is rescued from damnation by Michael (Emeka Ike), a boy friend with a humble background. For the sake of Michael’s love, her high wire destructive behavior simmers a little as she accepts constrains placed on her by him, and that takes a hundred and eighty degrees turn in her character.

Sandra and Michael enjoy a short period of relative peace of love until the uncompromising father of her offers Michael an ultimatum that askews the relationship:  Become pilot trainee in the father’s airline company and have a career in exchange for Sandra. Michael accepts career as a pilot  reluctantly, and Sandra is turned down by Michael even as she dogs him all over town.

Michael goes on to become a pilot and Sandra goes abroad to the US for studies. However, a big chunk of Sandra’s love remains in Michael’s heart as he keeps her picture with him  in the cockpit of the plane. Sandra comes back to town from the US with a fiancee, Jonnathan (Clem Ohameze), a four-one-nine don, and happens to run into Michael at a restaurant. There’s a brawl between the two fellas-Michael and Jonathan.

After series of attempts to take Sandra back from the American boy, even to the point that he loses his job with the airline, and crashes his car in a self-suicidal mission, he relents. Sandra and her parents find Jonnathan is fake and tricks him on his last mission to pilfer one hundred thousand dollars from Sandra’s father, by paying him off in counterfeit dollars, as long as he leaves Sandra and never comes back. Sandra goes knocking at Michael’s door for forgiveness, and when Michael couldn’t, she decides to go back to the states to finish her schooling.

For Better or For Worse isn’t about for better  for worse,  because, there isn’t a scene where marital vow is exchanged to validate  title of this movie. It is neither a lesson for overprotective parents, nor lesson for wanton children nor a blueprint for Romeo and Juliet,  but a share 226 minutes of past time .

Ali Baylay

The first love between  two adolescents is so powerful and pure. It’s the kind of love without reason, for they’re blind and innocent, virgin to the true intricacies of living a life. It is pure romance. The kind of love which the name of a partner, ‘Vivian’,’ Michael’, evokes magic and charm. With time, partners grow from adolescence to mature adults, and love is stricken by outside forces, then limitations and reasons set into their hearts and this time, not even the Shakespearean dictum of “Friend should bear his friend’s infirmities” holds water anymore. Sometimes.

One on One (Koni Concept/2007) fits a romance category that surpasses most productions coming from Nollywood assembly line. Writer, Chuks Obiora pours his poor heart into the story and hits the nail home in the last scene with the hitting of Vivian by a car and left to die. That’s how far love can take us to the limits of our lives.

One on One is a story of a boy chasing around a girl for his love sake, and girl plays hard to get for another love sake.  Boy is in luck with girl when he stands up to hoodlum as he tries to molest girl while girl’s  lover scampers away from scene. Boy’s face is bloodied by the hoodlum’s henchmen, but in the end wins girl’s love.   Their love quickly blooms but hampers when an uncompromising uncle decides to separate girl from boy by sending her away to a distant aunt. Girl goes into hiding but eventually caught in the company of boy. Boy is arrested, but Girl in one of her hysterical cries, threatens suicide and holds a kitchen-knife to her stomach, if her lover is not brought back to her. Boy  is left alone and love continues. That boy is Michael (Francis Duru), and the girl is Vivian(Ini Edo, 2006 nominee for Best Actress).

Michael graduates and gets hired by a bank and the bank owner’s daughter, Sylvia (Omotola Jalade Ekeinde) wants Michael. She takes Michael shopping, get him sleep over in her bed,  invites him to parties, even as Michael looks out of place in the crowd, and promises poor Michael heaven on earth. Under such materialistic spell, Michael’s heart is almost  stolen. However, when Sylvia proposes to Michael a vacation for two in the UK, Michael senses something amiss, and rebels and abruptly leaves scene and runs to his Vivian.  Sylvia, relentless, summons Vivian to her private gym and offers the poor girl a payoff for leaving Michael with her. When Vivian refuses and hurries from scene, she’s hit by a car right outside Sylvia’s house. If one had been engrossed in this movie up to this point, the soft heart will surely cry for Vivian. She endures so much pain for love’s sake.

To narrate One on One so haphazardly doesn’t reduce this story to one of the run of the mill Nollywood romantic flicks, and  will be pure tragic if  story like this gets lost in the Nollywood shuffle. This story has dept. It is a human story that centers around Michael, a young vibrant graduate, with an innocent look to his boyish demeanor, who finds himself standing at the precipice of his life. He however weathers it as his steadfast character does so in Immoral Act.

As to the characters of  his two lead women vying for his love,  screen giants in their own right,  Vivian has, “nothing to offer Michael but cry, cry, cry”, as Sylvia succintly  describes Vivian to Michael; and Vivian in a later scene retorts to Sylvia, “You’re such a big talker”. In considering the lead lady in One on One, Pretty Woman, I Will Die For You and Society Lady, she’s  a big talker alright, but also live big in real life. Remember, her wedding took place airborne aboard  DASH 7.

If  I were to write such a powerful romantic story, I would have rolled in the end credits right where Michael runs from Sylvia’s mansion and falls into the arms of  the weeping Vivian, then they stand up (personifying victory) arm in arm, and kiss an everlasting kiss.

By Ali Baylay

Aminata is a pastorial story of a tyrant Chief, Adikali Momo who can marry any woman or underage girl of his taste in his chiefdom. This time, he wants Kelfala (Mohamed Bobson Kamara), the village drunk’s daughter, Aminata (Aissatou Bah) to be his nineteenth wife. Being a poor husband, Kelfala is easy to consent to the marriage, but his wife, Aminata’s mother couldn’t because her brother was once murdered by the same chief for dating a girl the chief wanted. However, the chief must have his way if not, Kelfala and his wife would be banished from the village. That is what the poyo drinking courtiers make us believe.

Chief Adikali Momo (Muctar Cole/screenwriter) must always have his way, even if it takes to rape the poor girl, Aminata, which he does, while his guards beat Philip, her youthful lover to the point of losing his mind. Aminata runs from the houshold and during her odyssey to nowhere, she’s rescued by a loving family, in whose home she delivers Chief Adikali’s baby boy and, she’s later put in school and goes on to become a lawyer, and comes back to prosecute her raper, Chief Momo and put him away for all the injustices. There’s a grand resolution to this flick, as Philip, once considered dead or insane arrives in a jeep, grown and successful, upon the crowning ceremony of Aminata’s son, and both have a long kiss as the movie fades out.

Aminata is a straight forward story that has the characteristics of the nusery recitation, “The house that Jack Built”, one reads in elementary. The plots are many here, and are arranged by incident building on another incident. Any story that could not be summerized in one sentence has a plot defect, such as Aminata. Summarily one can claim Aminata to be the underdog versus the status quo, wherein the underdog becomes the topdog in the end.

The actors, Muctar Cole (Chief Adikali) and Mohamed Bobson Kamara (Kelfala) seem to be veteran actors for, their postures and deliveries aren’t forceful, and they both prove helpful in making other actors come alive. However, the younger Aminata and philip do not have the same screen nuances and ideosyncracies of the older ones which to a trained eye create unbelievable screen characters. One is easy to observe the unbelievable screen time from when Aminata dissppears from the village, and the chief’s guards looking for her to the scene where she vomits, indicating pregnancy.

One characteristic trait of Aminata is that  writers, producers, cinematographers, and actors produced a piece of art that uniquely fits Sierra Leone, because imitating productions of neighboring Nigeria and Ghana would have killed the essense of the final product. The dawning of the day like cocks crowing, in this little village in the opening sequence of Aminata, ironically marks the dawning of new age of cinema in this West African enclave once referred to as, Athens of West Africa. Soon, larger than life celebs in the likes of Genenvieve Nnaji, Kanayo .O. Kanayo, Rita Dominic, John Okafor (Mr. Ibu) etc shall be cropping up all over the place. Kudos, mister producer!