Sparrow Production presents, Damilola Adegbite (Pebbles), Benny Ashun (Troy), Sena Tsikata (Mansa), Nii Odoi Mensah (Francis), Marian Lempogo (Akos), Chris Attoh (Reggie), Asamani Boateng (David). Writer/Producer/Executive Producer, Shirley Nana Akua Manso; Director of Photography, Kwame Johnson; Editor, Nana Akua Manso; Producer, Creative Director, Chris Attoh. (C) 2010.
From my ten or so years reviewing movies, and following, the most popular family movies are farcical. Movies are a mode of entertainment. The rhetoric of film shouldn’t be politically or racially, or ethnically invidious; movies shouldn’t preach philosophy, I can learn that in the relationship with my neighbors; it must not teach psychology, I use that to psych my son into doing the yard for free. And commercial films shouldn’t be used as a form of a message; I already have Messenger on my android phone. Plain enough movies should entertain. Period.
Comedy films are the most popular films. Most are easy to shoot, easy to produce and most are profitable in the end. Nora Ephron’s When Harry Met Sally (1989), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and You’ve Got Mail (1998), are productions that deal with not-so-serious themes and creations fall below par with other Hollywood projects, but the 1993 Sleepless In Seattle, which costs 21 million dollars to produce, grossed about 227 million dollars at the box office world wild. It was not her name, Nora Ephron, that sold her movies, but for its romantic comedy-drama, everybody drove to the cinemas to watch.
Shirley’s narrative rhetorics don’t ramble, and her stories are always on the light side of life. Some ridiculous situation one could laugh about and rarely cry about, and if one cries at all, it must be the drop of tears out of overly funny events as we experience with 6 Hours… I cannot tabulate the gross intakes of her movies at the box office or the market stalls around the world-Nollywood is conservative about such disclosures-but I presume Shirley Frimpong-Manso, must be taking what’s coming to her. Characteristically, she deals with not too severe matters in her movies. She takes on the everyday happenings around us. It could be some incident that must have happened to you, or your friend, or will happen to you in your life experience. And even when she’s addressing a serious issue in her works, she still larders most of them with a situation comedy that will make you peal a laughter beyond the tears, like in A Sting in a Tale (2009), The Perfect Picture (2009), Rebecca (2016), Potato Potahto (2017).
In 6 Hours to Christmas, we spend a few hours of Christmas Eve in the company of two young characters, Reggie (Chris Attoh) and Pebbles (Damilola Adegbite) working as copywriters for an advertising agency. They have just had the great pat on their backs by the management and handed them their Christmas bonuses, and they all toasted glasses of wine to the good health of the company. Instantly, they are both in cloud nine of their happiness on this glorious evening of Christmas. Over excitements breed troublesome and naughty ideas in the minds of the youths. Pebbles ask for a lift home, and Reggie grabs the opportunity to be alone with the young mutton. Reggie internalizes, “You give a child a toffee and tell him not to eat it?” For Pebbles, “…so there’s enough time to open presents. Come,” she invites Reggie into her pad upstairs. Pebbles does Reggie in, “Christmas. Everybody is so willing to give.” A Christmas gift no one could refuse.
Pebbles is the kind of girl from nowhere, who can have one’s heart broken into fragments, and would still blame you for it. You find out she doesn’t share the same chemistry with Reggie. Reggie is bashful and flirting, and Pebbles is both naughty and feisty at the same time. On his part, he’s quickly taken in by the Christmas hullabaloo and the joy it brings in every heart, especially the young ones. With Reggie in tow, they end up in Pebbles quaint apartment. Reggie pops a malt, beer slows him down under the circumstances. Pebbles pops up a beer and appears at the door in a skimpy see-through. Christmas Eve pleasure starts here. Reggie had left his apartment the morning before Christmas, after hot sex, promising his beautiful girlfriend, Akos (Mirian Lempago) he’ll be home early to light up the fireworks with her. Meanwhile, his girlfriend is already nursing a bottle of wine on ice, in her see-through nighty. He’ll be home in “ten minutes.” Wrong! He’s in Pebbles pad for a Yuletide surprise.
Reggie and Pebbles’ fun in bed cut short when someone knocks from without and panic breaks out in the room. Pebbles is in a pickle and has to put Reggie away in the closet. Reluctantly, Reggie takes cover in the closet-very funny scene-and an errant sugar daddy, Francis (Nii Odoi Mensah), the Minister of Trade, enters the room enraged with a gun drawn. First, he suspects Pebbles for someone in the room, then switches to the medical result that he has contacted the aids virus from Pebbles. While both are on the exchange, Pebbles hit him with a lamp-stand, and he passes out. Hell, break loose in the world of romance. There’s panting and ranting. Pebbles and Reggie have to do away with the body on the floor before someone else’s sees it.
Pebbles and Reggie argue over how best they could dispose of the body, and while at it, an inquisitive Christian churchgoer house-mate of Pebbles, Benny (Sena Tsikota) enters, and nearly catches them, as she comes rushing in the living room to pick up her bible to go to Christmas Eve mass. Mansa is the mysterious Madame Engletyne character as in the Prioress Tale in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. She has an immense air of religious hypocrisy, by the tantalizing and ungodly way she looks at Reggie. Her inquisitiveness and the tight hugs also count. She’s surprised to notice Reggie as the boyfriend of her cousin, Akos. They had met at a funeral, and she promises to call and tell Akos, Reggie was at their apartment, but before she could leave, she wants to hug Reggie once more, but his manhood is already looking north. And she yells out loud with embarrassment.
Specific instances in 6 Hours… need mention. In the bedroom scene when Pebbles and Reggie about to make love and she wants to have sex in the dark but Reggie wants the light on, is hilarious. Most men have experienced this incident at one time in their bedroom lives:
Reggie, “It’s too dark in here.”
Pebbles, “I don’t do this with the light on, I have stretch marks.”
Reggie, “Yeah, but I’ll really like to see your face… C’mon, I don’t mind.”
Pebbles, “But I do.”
Reggie has in a panic and confusion calls Akos, the girlfriend, like we all typically do sometimes, prompts someone’s telephone number to call, and as the phone is ringing, we go on to do something else. Reggie forgets the line to his girlfriend is open just when the hugging incident between him and Mansa occurs, while Akos eavesdrops on the other end.
Mansa stands with outstretched hands for another hug from Reggie, “It’s so good seeing you again.”
“Oh, Jesus!” Mansa panics violently pushes Reggie back as the bulging front of his pants touches her.
Reggie, in panic “It’s not what you think, Mansa! I can explain. It’s a rock…”
Now at the door, covering her face with the bible, and intermittently peeping at the bulge in the front of Reggi’s pants.
Mansa, “I know but I’ve got to leave now!”
After Akos is through listening to the brouhaha over the phone, she pops open a bottle of wine, gulps one time and exits as she grumbles, “Damn Reggie…”
6 Hours to Christmas is a romantic comedy-drama and is really funny.