A Samcivic Production present Khareema Aguiar (Tracy), Rahim Banda (Junior), Nancy Momoh (Stacy),James Gardiner (James) Eddie Coffie (Mr. Jackson) Kofi Adjarolo (Mr. Goodluck). Story/Screenplay/Director, John Izedonmi; DOP, Sefa Ntiamoah; Editors, Basil Awuni Akugre, Isaac Ankamah Bedu, Felix Gyebi; Producer, Emmanuel Uzochukwu. (C) 2013)
The Power of Buttocks is a self-explaining title. More or less, the title seems like a ‘How To’ pamphlet. Whisper this title to an African male and hear him laugh, and fall, and swoon all over, and may even touch himself. We African men like buttocks, I mean big ol’ buttocks. The buttocks that jiggle our sensations, and the ones that twark and clap and dance to the rhythm of whatever our imaginations conjure. The kind of buttocks that make twice old big shots give away all their happiness for a one night stand. Some don’t like the mountainous hump of a butt. Their taste is the leggy buttocks that protrude on the sides of the legs. Most love the soft buttocks that be rough, wild, bounce and jiggle in the tight elastic pants. Now count me in on this last one. Don’t even get me started because I will go on and on with this buttocks thing!
The Power Of Buttocks of Tracy (Khareema Aguiar) is not sitting pretty here, though we have it that her big ol’ butt won the heart of the business magnate, Mr. Jackson (Edie Kofi). She’s in a pickle here: A humbug, Mr. Goodluck (Kofi Adjarolo) on one side and Junior (Rahim Banda) on the other, piss her off to the point of suicide.
The story is straight forward and in three sentences will tell the whole story if you don’t mind: Mr. Goodluck helps a stranded whore, Tracy (Khareema Aguiar) a big ol’ buttock woman, off the street, and remakes her into an office girl for the company he works. No sooner had she got into the enterprise, and through dirty politics of Tracy, who by then, was Mr. Jackson’s girlfriend, falls out of grace with Mr. Goodluck. The company lays him off; Mr. Goodluck turns into Tracy’s nightmare.
Mr. Goodluck turns out to be Tracy’s humbug: Now that Tracy gets him fired and has no job to support himself, naturally he becomes Tracy’s blackmailer. Having to know so much about her, from the street to colluding in getting Mr. Jackson to marrying her, and her subsequent secret rendezvous in Mr. Jackson’s household, with Mr. Jackson’s would-be-son-in-law. Everywhere in the story, and every dialogue between Mr. Goodluck and Tracy involves selling her security. In a sense, Tracy’s stay in the marriage depends on the secret (security) he has for her. Blackmail.
James, a young stud of every nympho’s dream, is the son of a longtime friend of Mr. Jackson since their London days, and James has a research assignment in Ghana and happens to stay in his home. Tracy, sex-starved, falls in love with James. One day, James fiance, Stacey (Nancy Momoh), calls him she was at the airport in Ghana, which was a surprise to him. What was a greater surprise was that the father of James’ fiance, Stacey is Mr. Jackson. The plot got thicker here when in a hotel foyer in Kumasi, Mr. Jackson is surprised to see her daughter, Stacy. He’s in shock to learn that the fiance of his beloved daughter is no other than James. James’ jaw drops to gain and overwhelms by the fact that the man he came to stay with, in Ghana is no other than his future father-in-law, and that he’s been sleeping with his future mother-in-law. Tracy got a load of a surprise here too, learning that the phone call she placed the night before was Stacey who received it, her future daughter-in-law. It’s all a mess and surprises, caused by one big ol’ buttock.
What’s important to me in this story is the review because this story doesn’t stand out as extraordinary. The character of Koffie Ajarolo here demonstrates the other side of him as a two-dimensional character. Most roles I’ve seen him played are as a rich man, lusting after a younger girl as in Princess Tyra (2007). I’ve never seen him in such a makeup role, and he cleverly manages to pull the stunt off. I laugh at his character every time he appears and delivers with the silver-coated teeth. He’s a great humbug and proves to be so to his target, Tracy. One thing comes to mind when he plays this character so well. I said to myself; this guy could be the African Batman, take note, Nollywood!
Junior is a phenom to reckon. He’s a kid to watch. This kid has complacent deliveries. Even as scripted, Junior makes his lines into his own. The dialogue between him and James in the living room, and between him and his step-mother are so amusing that one could assume him to be a kid delivering adult lines, and he does so with so much brevity and complacency. Both James and Tracy know as Junior knows that he saw them having sex but they have to be political and diplomatic in their panic as not to press any further buttons on the little smart cookie. He has the key to a valuable and delicate secret. Junior plays and handles their secret with oblivious. Here is a tart dialogue between Tracy and Junior, Tracy suspecting and trying to intimidate Junior about her rendezvous, that night with James:
Tracy: I haven’t seen you much since your father traveled.
Junior is oblivious.
Tracy: You didn’t say anything.
Junior: I haven’t seen in you the virtue of a real mom…Did you hear any negative things that could be traced back to me?
When all is said and done, I look upon the character of Tracy as unfinished business. She’s in a handcuff in Bed To Grave. Conventionally, she needs to have a reward for all she does in the film unless writer and producers are trying to justify the crimes she commits in this story. She killed the housemaid, kills her tormentor, Mr. Goodluck, and causes Mr. Jackson to have a heart attack and dies. No one exposes Tracy to Stacy for having an affair with James. The incident, however, reminds me of an old sixties song, by Billy Preston, that goes like this: ” I got a story ain’t no moral, I let the bad guy win every once in a while.” You bet not in every story we kill the antagonist; they too have right to live. Here, Tracy lives and inherits the mansion without prosecution for the murders. One lingering question here is, whatever happens to the photographs Junior takes at the scene of the crime of Mr. Goodluck and the housemaid? I guess Junior would have to come back when he grows up to prosecute his stepmother. An average story to watch.
I do however note an editorial oversight in the scene where Junior and Tracy are having the conversation and Tracy warning the boy never to tell her father nor anyone about their meeting. The scene repeated itself with no cinematic importance to the story. If we allow Junior to take a photograph of the crime in action, we expect a fallout. At least I expect a fallout. YOU?