A Kalu Enxioma Onuoha Production Presents: Martha Ankoma (Vikky), Scott Robert (Shanka), Prince Peter (Chief Okeagu) Johannes Maier (Eddie), Emmanuel Armah (Gen. Okagie), Henry Ukelonu (Kofi). Story/Screenplay/Producer, Onuoha E. Kalu; Director of Photography, Frederick O. Appianing; Editor, Basil Akugre; Director, Ifeanyi Ekwenm.
Thug Love starts with a thawed out frame of a still picture of voters casting their ballots and the movie turns into actually melted structures. Thawed out frames could be used either at the beginning of a film or at the beginning of a scene. It is mostly used to tell history. As in the case here, it is used to tell the activities of Shanka as a staunch political stalwart who can come in a pickup truck, grab ballot boxes from voting precincts and get away with it. And so, if an opposing party or candidate wanted to use him and he still puts on resistance, then he lives in the cruel world of politics, where nothing is definite.
Thug Love is not the usual thuggish abusive romance rife with drug sales and use, and alcohol consumption in some off the beaten path little shag, with the pile of children watching grown-ups, do drugs and hit on each other. I’m not talking about west side, east side kind of thuggish division within a city. As the name could tell, this is a movie about a political campaigner planted with a drug by the opponent and arrested and detained permanently, but innocent young lawyer comes to town and falls for him and dedicates her profession and risks her credibility to saving him and freeing him from prison.
Vikky (Martha Ankomah), arrives in town from abroad with a law degree and decides to work for the underdogs who are not able to hire a lawyer and are permanently locked up illegally. She takes appointment from an NGO, human rights organization, and upon a visit to the jailhouse, sees Shanka (Scot Robert) on the sick bed and volunteers to defend him in court.
Though Vicky’s mother did not want her to take this type of job because there’s not much money in it, the father, Gen Okajie (Emmanuel Armah), thinks she should do it, as long as she loves it. But when Shanka is freed from the court by Vikky, and cures him of his pneumonia, and becomes healthy and all, Vikky packs her bags, leaves her parents a note and early in the morning, hops in a taxi and joins him in the ghetto.
Shanka is more a political stalwart than a thug. He looks refined and not shaggy, the usual shagginess of a thirty days old plaited hair and a cigarette tucked behind his ear, reeking with marijuana, his pants falling off his butt, a red bandana tied around his head and so on. I have seen political thugs, beat and trash market women, senior men and terrorize political opponents and get away with it. Shankar’s character did not demonstrate anything or behave as thuggish but only as a campaign stalwart.
Vikky however in stature looks thuggish with her green, rough and rugged built but that is all about it. And for her to fall in love with Shanka is more for the fact that the one and only love she comes to, has already gotten married to some other woman and expecting a baby. In essence, she pushes herself on Shanka so that he fills the romance gap in her life.
What Vikky stands for in this movie is similar to what Omotala Jalade’s character stands for in Temple of Justice. Here, the Director spends unnecessary time and space to get Vikky into the picture unlike Temple of Justice. As such we miss the court session and the political opponent that declares to fight Vikky for freeing Shanka. If those two plots are well developed, it would have made this movie a notable one, considering Shanka’s plight is a familiar play in our African political campaigns.
The character of Prince Peter reminds me of an internet material one Ghanian journalist, Kye Boateng wrote, on a Ghanian parliamentarian, Eric Amoateng. Don’t get me wrong. But it happens I’ve just watched this movie when I ran across that article in a magazine. The demeanor of Chief Okeagu in Thug Love, as his henchmen plant a bag of cocaine on their opponents, is akin to the story of Amoateng as narrated by Boateng, caught with a car load of heroin at JFK self-storage.
Thug Love is a straight jacketed story with not much ado about anything, but it can still worth your evening time with the children watching while you take a nap through it. Enjoy it in your dreams.