Firepix Studios presents Uzo Arukwe (Debo Devi), Chris Attoh (David), Adesua Etomi-Wellington (Kate), Tina Mba (Debo Mum), Patrick Oke Jr (Adekunle), Siki Osei (Bella). Producer, Joy Aiyegbeni; Executive Producers, Chichi Ozoemena/Chinyere Ozoemena; Cinematography by Adekunle Nodash Adejuyigbe; Director, Tope Oshin; Screenplay by Temitope Bolade/Temitope Akinbode/ Diche Onunwa; Story by Isaac Opara. © 2017
Debo Devi (Uzo Arukwe) comes from prison for the murder of his father for beating on his mum (Tina Mba). Six years in jail in modern times would seem like a hundred years of yesteryears, in such times when time fleets away at nanoseconds. Debo Devi has not always been like that; this temperamental, such hot-headed. Most times, family members do us in. His mother did him by involving in extramarital affairs with Senator Danladi, and his father beats on his mother for that. Out of anger for his mother, he killed his father. Now, poor boy, he has to go to jail and live with the shame and guilt for the rest of his life. Debo Mum doesn’t see it that way.
Debo, “I had a chat with David.”
Mum, “So what feat have I achieved to become the subject of male gossip?”
Debo, “How did you get me out of prison?”
Mum, “Presidential pardon.”
“I want the truth.”
“What do you care? You are a free man!”
“It’s Senator Danladi. Isn’t it? Are you serious, mum? You went back there after your relationship with him almost ruined our lives. That man is why you and dad had a fight, and my intervention ended up in a murder…this is messed up. You are messed up, mum.”
That’s what he faces. After six years in jail for the murder of his dad, his wife Kate shivers at her husband’s touch. He is no longer accepted by the community he once belongs; they secretly avoid him and his company, like a leper. And they gossip behind his back. This is heavily smothering him, and wants acceptance again; Nigeria’s business landscape has changed dramatically since he was gone. How can he catch up?
Debo wants to understand his wife’s personal phone calls, her mysterious disappearances from behind her desk in the office, and her reluctance for him to go back to work. And giving him false excuses to rest and so forth, Debo hires a private investigator. Bella (Siki Osei) is Debo’s one-time girlfriend. She takes the job of spying on Kate. He cleverly brings her into his household as a maid from the Domestic Help Agency. Kate isn’t entirely convinced about the new maid in their home. However, she has to accept Bella fearing Debo’s tantrum if she refuses. Bella brings Debo incriminating photos of Kate slapping a kiss on Steve’s friend’s lips.
Debo lodges some punches on Steve’s jaw the next time he meets him, and Kate isn’t happy about that. Debo on why he did that to Steve, the only living family of Kate, “I went to jail for killing my father. Giving your only family a bloodied nose is a piece of cake. You starve your husband of sex, but you give it freely to your brother’s friend?”
Kate could not bring herself to accepting her husband anymore after the incident. He has been to jail for murder. Such character, coupled with his temperaments and his statement about killing his father, like he doesn’t care, creates the goddam fear in her.
Kate is a smart cookie of a woman and knows there is something not quite right about the maid. Just as Debo puts a private investigator on her, so she puts her office secretary to investigate this maid in their home called Ama. The background checks yield results, but there are more than a hundred housemaids of the Ama Mensah name, in Lagos. Soon, Bella finds and photographs Kate slapping a kiss on Steve’s friend’s lip, who Debo assumes she dates. And he lodges some punches in David’s jaw, which didn’t sit well with Kate. But this is what David said in conjunction with the affairs with Steve’s friend. “You deny your husband…” he grabs Kate and about to force her to have sex, but Bella thwarts him. Kate leaves that night to spend the night at Debo’s friend’s David house.
David, the family business lawyer, has doubled as Kate’s paramour. She wants a divorce and David must arrange it. Regarding how cleverly she can get out of the marriage with Debo without danger of her safety. David helps Kate forge Debo’s signature and clears the bank of all the savings. All along, David is cahooting with Kate, believing that both of them shall escape to another unknown place on this planet where Debo will not find them. Kate had a counterplan plan, as David too had one. David’s goal was to get Kate to withdraw the money and then get rid of Kate. Kate had earlier eavesdropped on David having a secret conversation with Christine.
In Line is like a popular afrobeat that has garnered millions of hits on the worldwide web. You think you know all the lyrics by heart and that you can sing along. Not quite so, sister. With the first Line out, you’ll want to dance the Wobble. Nope. Then you change to Cha cha cha to catch up. You’re mistaken there. Actually, the instrumental and the lyrics turn out to be jazz: Maestro Herb Alpert, “Slick.” Adesua Etomi sang this song and danced to this tune once, but that was a tango, not jazz. In Arbitration (2016), she sued Gbenga (OC Ukeji) for a share of Iwaju Limited. As a Chief Operating Officer of Iwaju Limited, with an impeccable business ingenuity, she brought so much to the enterprise, but she and the CEO mixed business with pleasure. They fall in love, and then she wanted out. The arbitration panel granted her a good deal of share of the company.
Here, Debo builds up a successful advertising entity with his wife Kate before going to prison for six years for killing his father. As they say, absence makes the heart fonder. At length, Kate thought Debo would never come back home. She then started fooling around with the company lawyer, David. David is a starving attorney who eats roadside doughnuts and drinks cool-aid for lunch in a public park. David is in a secret relationship with an equally hard-up girl, Christine. He plans a get-away with Christine once he gets the money for Kate to siphon it from her: “Once we have the money, we’ll be gone. Far away from here and get married…Love you. Love you so much, Christine.” David had said.
All in all, I’m still looking around for the character who is falling in line. Not Debo. He got a heart-stopping message from Kate, and he screams his heart out. David was sure he had outwitted Kate. Nope. You see him banging on the steering wheel in disappointment. The money he depended on to take a trip with girlfriend Christine has been transferred to Kate’s private unknown account. Kate in Line? Hardly so. Among all, Kate is the only character who jumped the coo coos nest. She was sipping Champaign at the airport on her way out of the country, forever. She’s slick like I said.
I know some friends might be complaining about the savagery in my reviews about their beloved actors. But most may think I’m sentimental. Reviewing literary issues cannot be political. Lots of literates are sitting, nursing their glasses of liquors, in some lonely bars brooding over what you might have said about a favorite actor. In Line is a nice little story about a relationship between a husband and a wife. I did not know much about Uzo Arukwe like I did Chris Attoh and Adesua Etomi These are actors I have seen in actions and reviewed numerous times. But Uzo Arukwe, honestly, is new to me.
What I know though, is that Bolade, the Screenwriter created a doomed character of Debo Devi. In Debo Devi’s hearts of heart, his character carries a pain in his heart which nobody knows but him, and it is weighing heavily on him. Debo Devi is a ‘damaged good’ walking among descent friends. Oh no, he’ll never be accorded the respect of other fellows of his crowd. He has been in prison, you know. The kind of person when approaching his fellow men in a party, all of them will turn to him, quiet and seemingly sympathetic of a look but with the kind of eyes of hypocrites. Gosh, when he turns his back, they’ll murmur, “Jailbird.”
However, we must have a sense of reasoning for the character of Debo in this movie. Debo’s mother stole her son’s spirit and soul by her getting involved in external affairs with another man besides his father. Which ultimately let him kill his father in the process. Boy, boy children can go a long mile in defense of their mothers. A friend of mine’s son once asked his father to divorce his mother if the incessant stress on his mother by him couldn’t stop. Debo commits the most egregious crime by killing his father. It wasn’t willful. He has to do so to protect his mother from his dad. Yet, by doing so, he trades away his happiness. The spirit that once binds a husband and a wife can suffer after six years of separation. Kate never loves him anymore. Love, like an untended flower in a garden, withers.