Crime Of The Heart

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Production House Missing: Dave (Dave Obgeni), Thelma, Brenda (Nora Clifford). Screenplay, Francis Uzoma Disney (Gerald); DOP, Kenneth Nwabuze; Editor, Frank Douglas; Producer, Nora Clifford; Director, Dave Obgeni. (C2017)

When comes Spring, I’m always looking for movies that put me in the mood for love, except this one, this year. In two reviews in a row, Losing You and Crime Of The Heart, I come across movies that leave me with sad and sickening feeling at curtain up. Now, you’ll be asking yourself, why not half way through the films, shut it down and go on to the one with lighter and gay themes.

My sin is, I never turned down a movie, ones I started watching and reviewing mentally, lest I judged it unfairly. I checked into Youtube lineup of Nollywood drama series and stopped by Crimes Of The Heart. A  fast-paced flick with rapid fire works of dialogue. I thought I walked into a Roman theater. The dialogue and the theatrics of the actors’ deliveries are so Roman and Shakespearian. Almost thirty minutes of the flick got me lost in words, grammar, structure, proverbs and fables and burning-bush parables and “plethora of expression.” as confused Gerald could say to Thelma.

At one point, I am convinced a certain MFA dissertation on Shakespearian theater found it’s way to Nollywood. I see these actors delivering their lines and making entrances like Roman artists at the Coliseum. I asked myself about what they are preaching and fussing.  But when the temper stopped flaring, and they all simmered down, I found out this:

Brenda, the older sister of Gerald, is too over caring for her younger brother. She couldn’t let Gerald marry any girl without her approval, especially the Columbian one. After much ado, she gave in to let Gerald bring Thelma over for dinner.

Gerald and Thelma arrive, and the story goes full throttle. The dam breaks and hell break loose. It’s hair-pulling, dropping nuclear bombs of surprises, on innocent Dave and Gerald.  Thelma and Brenda have their paths crossed seven years ago. They’re both members (exclusively, women) of a secret cult of which members sacrificed their wombs and became barren in exchange for wealth. Brenda won’t let Thelma ruin her brother’s chance of having a child as she has done to Dave, her husband.

As the revelations into the lives of both Brenda and Thelma were made, and while the whole family stands outside, begging Dave with his luggage, not to leave Brenda, a fruit sales girl walks to them and confesses she’s pregnant for Dave (reminds me of a literary track I’m developing).

Then another nine months pregnant woman also enters upon the scene and requests for the balance of money Brenda owes her for getting pregnant so she can claim the child.  You bet, a commonplace deal in Nollywood. (Muna Obiekwe, may God spare his blessed soul in peace, was once hired by Tonto Dikeh in Beyond Secret-C2011, to bear a child for her and her husband). Brenda runs from the scene and is later found in her room foaming white goo from her mouth. She’s dead from a heart attack. End of story.

If we had been complaining about the length of Nollywood movies that run into hours, well this does us a little bit of good. It is short. However, it severely lacks elements of a severe and well-developed screenplay. The characters do not have thick skins. That is, they do not have history, nor subplots and the writer seemed in a hurry to bring his experience to screen before Nollywood closes its door to him.

“Do you know I can sue you for emotional distress and take my chances in court?” Dave says to Brenda. If Dave had turned his back and we later saw him in court, on the opposite side of the isle from Brenda, the story would have had a meaningful life. Now an extension of Crime Of The Heart, to the level of a court would have stood out just the same way Omotala Jalade’s masterpiece, Temple Of Justice (C2016), (with its tangy Carribean song track, “I don Come,”  become a national debate. The topic under review is a sensitive social issue and could stimulate a constitutional discussion and also results in a legal test case. This story would be complete if it went that far.

However, because of it’s short length, I can watch it to the end and still tuck in before my madam, in the master bedroom, starts to snore. Watch it but listen keenly and keep your dictionary or contana by your side before you got lost in words.

NOTE: I didn’t review this film in a customary way for which I ask for forgiveness. There is no such formal outline of actors and their screen names at the end roll of the film.