By Ali Baylay

The second major location in Area Mama (De-Kross Movies) introduces the viewer to an ill-clad wife, Adanne (Mercy Johnson), as she sits in a barren living room feeding her son with garri when her husband drunkenly staggers into the room and jumps on her in a fight. The abuse continues until Adanne bloodies the husband’s forehead before escaping with her son from the scene. At her aunt’s home, Celia, her globe-trotting drug courier cousin who doesn’t believe in “stupid marriages” and thinks “a woman’s life is not all about marriage,” volunteers to take Adanne to the city. In Lagos, she hands Adanne over to Mama Gee who manages a household of Ashawos (prostitutes). What Adanne is about to find out is that “In Lagos every dog eats shit” as Celia will later tell her.

A producer means business when he casts two top billing actresses, Eucharia Anunobi (UK) and Mercy Johnson, and crowns them up with Patience Ozukwor. I mean Mama Gee, the mother of Nollywood films. The trio can set any screen afire and they manage to pull off one poorly written screenplay in Area Mama.

An unguarded women’s liberation this story is, though. Adanne runs from an abusive marriage in exchange for running the streets of Lagos, even to the point of sleeping with men whose “concern for a prostitute is the action and not any emotional problem”; Celia (Eucharia Anunobi) condemns marriage but traffics drugs from one continent to another while she keeps a gigolo in her bed; and Mama Gee (Patience Ozukwor) runs a brothel and finances a younger man as she sits in loneliness and drinks her life away. One must assume there is something missing in the lives of these so-called liberated women.

Mercy Johnson, who made her screen debut in Kenneth Nnobue’s The Maid , recently interviewed for the AfricanMovieStar.com, denied sleeping with the top brass in Nollywood, but in Area Mama she learns fast at playing an excellent hooker. However, the poor screenplay couldn’t allow the Igbira babe to give a stellar performance.

Area Mama is a story with universal lessons: One can never run away from the truth as evidenced in the personal experience of Adanne. She escapes an abusive husband but ends up in brothel servicing an abusive patron. Second, money can’t bring happiness as Celia with all the fleet of cars and the mansion would come to find out that while she’s away slugging it out like a man and trafficking drugs between continents, the gigolo she leaves at home entertains prostitutes in her bed – monkey wok baboon eats. Lastly, the irony of Mama Gee stuffing her little cache with Naira made off of a stable of innocent girls, a table in front of her full of imported liquor, and drinking herself to death does not spell happiness. The first time Mama Gee appears in this movie, she’s alone and she ends up alone at the end of the story.

Area Mama isn’t a redemption song for the African woman nor is it an advise for the woman in abusive marriage. To an extent, it tells the viewer the level Adanne falls from grace by following the footpath of Mama Gee and Celia; that running a brothel, no matter how lucrative, can be a lonely one. And the fleet of cars and a mansion bought with drug money buys Celia fake friends.

The proverbial ‘caught in the act’ suggests sexual impropriety. My libido flares at the connotation of the meaning. Imagine an enraged husband bursting into a flee-infested motel room, catching his wife and his driver making out. Choosing Caught in the Act wasn’t a choice based on the star-studded line up, but rather was based solely on the title. It is a thought provoking title that anybody might snatch off a store shelf. I admit, I’m a victim!  Wow, what’s in a name?

A night club acquaintance of young Mrs. Evelyn Duke approaches her as she sits picnicking with her mother-in-law, the elder Mrs. Duke. The acquaintance knows young Mrs. Duke as Jane, a girl he met one night on the town. Then the dam breaks in this tight high society business family. Shrewd old Mrs. Duke is convinced beyond doubt her daughter-in-law leads a double life. Clarion Chukwurah got quite in form in this open-ended thriller as a snobbish, hateful and discording character. We see young Mrs. Duke (Jane) as a  prostitute for one goon on the west side of town and working for another goon on the east side as a child abductor.

Director Christopher Orzoemenn puts together a stellar cast here: Clarion Chukwurah, a veteran actress who made her screen debut on Money Power in the early 80s; Koffi Adjorlolo, a veteran Ghanian actor; Nonso Diobi, a 27 years old up-and-coming actor who made name for himself in The Richest Man; and Genevieve Nnanji, a 24 years old Lagos-Nollywood-movie phenom.

Beside its disjointed scenes and non-convincing dialogue, Caught in the Act is a sound script. The young Mrs. Duke, known alternately as Jane and Evelyn, does assume character. I guess at age 24, 50 films will definitely give one the ability to judge a good and sound script. The most intresting part of this movie is Genevieve’s ability to alternate roles. At the Duke’s, she speaks like a refined upper class, high society lady. And when she goes out on the town, a bimbo in her own right, she speaks the pidgin English with a fluency of a Nigerian street hawker. Her delivery of both is flawless. However, the movie would actually be better if we got to actually see her get caught in the act!

Ali Baylay/Publisher.