Diamond World Production presents, Majid Michel (Leo Rawlings), Jackie Appiah (Diana Rawlings), Kalsoum Sinare (Diana’s Mother), Prince David Osei (Raphael), Rosalyn Ngissah (Det. Susan). Director Of Photography, Adekoya: Story, Ibrahim Seidu: Screenplay, Phil Efe Bernard/Rahim Itamah Noma; Producers, Rukaya Seidu/Ibrahim Seidu; Director, Phil Efe Bernard. (C.2012)
Nollywood movie titles these days are too explicit. You don’t necessarily have to watch them because the claims by themselves explain it all: My Husband Is The Best, I Can’t Please My Husband, Just Married Virgin. The Beautiful Maid That Stole My Heart, My Wife My Worst Enemy, My Ugly Wife Is Now Pretty, The Woman That Showed Me, Heaven. Suddenly, I missed titles like Fada Fada, Bursting Out, November 12, Kula Da Shi, Hoodlums, Prison Break, Exposure. Adam’s Rib, American Sniper. Claims that do not exceed more than three words, and don’t say much but creates curiosity and doubts and want-to-see interest in us, can be quaint. Nowadays Nollywood titles sing more like going to a hardware store and ends up in the ‘how to…’ department: How to fix your kitchen cabinet, how to build your patio, and how to makeover your bathroom in one day. Four or five-word movie titles are quite juvenile.
Deadly Affair creates a want-to-see craving in me. What can be dangerous about a love affair? Who gets deadly and who comes out of the relationship laughing? Stakes even got high after seeing the picture of the two badasses of Ghally: Majid Michel and Prince David Osei, then their best friend’s mother in Open Scandal (C2010), Kalsume Sinare. She dates both Majid and Prince in that movie but kills them afterward. With those three in a film, and towing behind them, the homely girl, Jackie Appiah, I already smell blood and gore. The screen sure going to sizzle with professionals acting their lousy boy parts, and sure enough, behind the two-word title lies the most gruesome, dangerous, and bloody, deadly affair.
Screenwriters Phil Efe Bernard and Rahim Itamah Noma put much drama into this two-word title and didn’t waste time introducing us to the nuclear confrontation or problem in the film by letting Diana Rawlings (Jackie Appiah) takes a phone call from her lover during her psychiatrist visit. Then at a gala, Diana throws a kiss and a wink, and on a reverse shot, while she’s in the arms of her husband Leo Rawlings ( Majid Michel), we see a man, Raphael (Prince David Osei), camera hanging on his neck, and he has a punk hairdo. I asked myself, why is a celeb throwing a kiss and a wink to a guy with a punk hairdo? At this point, I do my usual: jump into the Jon, take a quick pee, rush to the refrigerator, grab me a can of beer and popped it open right there, and settle peacefully on my couch. I foresee something deadly sooner or later going to go down right before me on that screen, and soon enough during that same gala, Leo notices something between Raphael, the guy with the punk hairstyle, and his wife, Diana. From there and then, the relationship between Leo Rowlings, and Raphael is Jekyll and Hyde.
The Screenwriters raise so many stakes in this movie that scene after scene, something exciting or nerve-racking happens, and it does. That’s a pure writing genius. Holding the viewer’s attention glued to the screen because the viewer’s afraid not to miss any action, as they, the activities, stay fluid. Diana Rowlings has a life insurance that amounts to millions. Whether her husband had nursed the thought of killing her isn’t clear, but when he discovers that Diana is dating a fake artist, a convict of old, he hires Raphael to kill his lover, his wife. Leo Rawlings business is going downhill, and he needed the money to replenish. The plot to kill her messes up when Diana by share desperate thrust, stabs the hired hand to death. Raphael doesn’t believe Leo Rawlings is for real and he starts recording transactions between them, which he will later use against him.
Leo Rowlings and Raphael meet, and he gets the balance of money for the job to kill Diana, for real this time. But Raphael mails the recorded tape of their plot to Leo, and he’s about to leave town with the money without doing his assignment, but Leo Rawlings waylaid him when he hired a taxi cab which Rawlings, undercover, is driving. Leo takes Raphael to a secluded place in the city and shot some bullets into him and leaves him by the wayside for death. At home, Diana makes the fearful discovery from the tape Raphael sent, that her husband is the one behind the attempt to kill her, and she puts Leo at gunpoint. Raphael comes from behind Leo Rawlings and shoots him, while he too dies in the same Leo Rawling’s living room and Diana sits between her deceased husband, and her dead lover Raphael. I didn’t want to take you through this story scene by scene, but briefly, and along the way, the psychiatrist, aside lover of Leo Rawlings, hired by him to spy on his wife, got killed. Two journalists get killed too. Events in this film spill lots of blood.
One useful aspect of this film is the characterization: At the earliest scene at the gala, when all the three major players meet in one scene, We see Leo Rawlings pushing his wife Diana from taking interview from the press. That action indicates, who has the upper-hand in this celebrity relationship. Leo Rawlings interview with the media, his mode of talking with the language of class and mannerism tells the viewer he must be insolent and a braggart who puts up a facade to cover the emptiness. Raphael, with his dressings and the punk hairstyle, and the street-smart dialogue of his tells us his class in life is on a tangent with Rawlings. He can be uncouth, rough and ghetto. To wit:
“What do you want…What is it this time?” Leo Rawlings asks Raphael when they meet after the botched attempt on his wife.
“What do I want? You owe me money.” Raphael puts it bluntly.
“You didn’t do your part of the bargain.” says Leo Rawlings, and he adds, “You know I envy you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re fucking my wife. Do you enjoy it?”
“No, I don’t. We are in love.”
After a long peel of laughter, “She’s in love, but you are not. You are doing business…Your real name is Isaac Mensah; you are not a photographer; You scam rich women.”
“It’s called survival.”
“You don’t know me.”
I know who you are. You are the guy who hired me to kill his wife because he can’t do it.”
“I’d rather we give it sometime before we finish the job of killing her.”
“Wait till when (beat) So, do I have to go ahead and keep f******* your wife?”
Such is the intense conversation that takes place between a desperate husband to get rid of his wealthy wife and a punk jailbird who has fallen in love with a wife he’s hired to kill. He’s about to double-cross the husband, expose him to his wife and skip town with the 100,000 Cedis he’s awarded. Will he? You can check out this movie. I recommend it for your viewing pleasure.