A Protocol Multimedia Presentation, presents, James Gardener (Drake), Ziggy Netterson (Nana Kesse) Nadia Buari (Bridget), Fred Amuchi ( Paakow), Kinsley Yemoah (Attakora), Dexter Anawana (Chief Eze), Akylia Liverpool (Mimi), Veronica Rockson (Regina). Screenplay/Producer Pappa Deric; Editor, Wale Akingbowa; Director Phil Effi Bernard; Director of Photography, Frederick Ofosu Appianing. (C. 2015)
Kiss Me is a title that tickles memory and brings whole lots of nostalgia. It was this sixteen years old boy come home to the village on his first term break from school. Noticeably, he was a community celebrity: played soccer, won few dancing competitions-girls love such; took part in school drama and excelled in school class debating competition. There were girls his age swoon over him. This one girl, during a back to school dance, and a chance meeting outside the thatched fence and in the dark held him close and said to the Author, “Kiss me,” and he bravely kissed a girl for the very first time. To this very day, the phrase ‘kiss me,’ brings back that memory. Kiss Me here is not a story of innocent kids kissing for the first time. It is the story of a bachelor and a spinster both attorneys whose paths crossed by intent.
At the onset of this movie, and by its structure, I thought sure we were heading for a Ghallywood version of the 1949 Hollywood production of Adam’s Rib. You remember Adam Bonner (Spencer Tracy) and his wife, Amanda (Catherine Hepburn) a couple, both lawyers defending each side of a case, where Judy Holliday accused of shooting her cheating husband. Adam Bonner and Amanda, spend each day in court badger each other and come home to each other and sit at the same dinner table. A romantic comedy. Kiss Me, except in certain instances where it dropped comic reliefs here and there, loitered away, way away from a semblance of Adam’s Rib, and wandered into the realm of a serious drama, bordering close to tragedy.
Drake (James Gardener), is a lawyer whose reputation is an A class and has never lost a case. “I’m smart like that,” he brags so at length. To him even the Titanic sank, referring to his fearlessness to challenge any legal mind and to confront any formidable case in court. But his moral sense stands in the way of doing his lawyerly duties to both his clients and the community. Ones he revolts against one of his customers who rightly accused of raping a woman but freed by him. Drake, however, confronts his client Chief Eze (Dexter Anawana) about the truth that he Chief Eze did indeed rape the poor woman. Chief Eze is angry and they all, the Chief and his gang decide to disbar Drake by planting on him a perjury crime. To do so perfectly, they hired another smart but beautiful female lawyer, Bridget (Nadia Buari). Drake and Bidget meet to discuss the case in a deposition. In that scene and thereafter, Drake proves to Bridget that he’s a hard nut to crack. “I will line up all fifteen clients of yours in court and one of them will lie under oath…This is not America, this is Ghana! Your clients are poor, illiterates and timid…most of all, I’ll tell the world what happened in Tennessee,” Drake says to Bridget. “You’re better off going back to the States, ” he bluntly tells her. Bridget concludes she can’t fight this gargantuan lawyer who knows the Ghanian terrain better than her, so she gives in to romance with him. The story plot changed from here on to a romantic rendezvous to the end where both of them run from a shooter chasing after them.
Bridget sets up Drake alright, and him out of the goodness of his heart, and already in love with Bridget, falls for the bait. But Drake’s sixth sense tells him to keep collecting incriminating pieces of evidence on all his three conspirators: Attakora (Kinsley Yemoah), Chief Eze (Dexter Anawana), Nana Kesse(Ziggi Netterson). He’s smart like that! Midway through the dirty deal to frame Drake, Bridget, having honestly and truly fallen in love with Drake, pulls out of the deal even as she’s offered a large sum of money than she earlier bargained.
Instead of Drake falling in a perjury trap and losing his bar license, he unexpectedly steps in a room where the conspirators are having a meeting about him and present each of them the personal specks of dirt he has gathered. Each with both perjury and falsification of court documents that would ram each of them not less than five years in prison. They couldn’t shoot him on the spot even as the bodyguard attempts to do so. He’s smart like that!
Kiss Me misses its mark as a whole courtroom drama between two lawyers. Bridget joins camp with Drake, and that is where the flaw comes in. Drake introduced as a formidable attorney who never loses a case, and he proves so in one instance or two. Bridget is a Columbia law graduate whose record in the Manhattan, New York legal circle is outstanding. To pit this two characters against one another to the end would have been a remarkable story, but introducing romance and Bridget giving in to trap Drake on a perjury case hampers the plot line. From that point on we witness a romantic flick bordering on kisses and sex and gunplay. There could have been one single case, a complex one, wherein Drake would have challenged Bridget to and stand in different isles in court. Romance should have taken a backdrop of the relationship and show prowess in the courtroom. But in Kiss Me, love takes the frontal stage.
Now that Kiss Me passes on a classic courtroom drama between two lawyers, each in his or her right as attorneys who never lose a case, we then enter into the world of romance between a man and a woman. Dave, whose life since started practicing law is all about winning cases and a life devoid of sex or romance, and a woman who lost a husband to leukemia fifteen years ago and is ready to direct her sexual starvation and frustration on anyone pitting against her in court. Since Drake feels cheated by his client Chief Eze and makes him feel moral guilt over a case he won for him and confronts them so, they, Nana, Attakora, and Chief Eze wants him disbarred. This move paves a way for the most beautiful on-screen romantic story between Nadia Buari and James Gardner. Bridget’s mission to “cut him to size,” as Nana would say, only make her in the latter end alters, “I love you, Drake.”
One characteristic of Kiss Me is the sidekicks: Drake’s uncle and Mimi (Akylia Liverpool), Bridget’s stay-home-cigarette-chain-smoking sister. The presence of Mimi and contribution to the story is immense. Through her character, Bridget’s character becomes alive. We are able to have a glimpse of Bridget’s history in the real world, for instance, the mentioning of the name Tennessee as it keeps ominously coming in heated dialogues either between Bridget and Drake, or between Dave and Mimi or, between Mimi and Bridget. Mimi’s plotline in the story has the essence of comic relief. She has a crush on Drake and tries to seduce him. But Drake has his wits about him and not for a possible nutcase like Mimi. He’s smart like that! Drake uses her to get important pieces of information on Bridget. She acts as the unwitting liaison between Bridget and Dave, but invariably heightens tension between them. Remember, she still has a crush on Drake.
Drake’s uncle introduced to us as either a failed boxer or one-time wannabe boxer who lives in the boys’ quarter in Drake’s compound. Being the only survivor or next of kin to Drake, he wants his nephew dead so he can inherit his property. Besides saying so, and mentioning it many times in his dialogue, he never for once tries to kill Drake. In story formats, If you show a gun or weapon in a story, you’re telling viewers at a certain point in the story the gun will fire. By him mentioning he wants Drake dead, he should have instigated the effort but not only wished him found dead. Besides his wishes, he lives by scamming his neighbors. He attempts to be funny, but it doesn’t meet the standard of the movie especially when he neither contribute to advance the story like Mimi does nor make us genuinely laugh at the weak stunts he pulls. Comparatively, Mimi’s character has a place in the movie. Of course, I believe he’s planted in the movie to make Drake real. And so?