Royal Arts Academy &Achivas Entertainment Production present Majid Michel (Tom), Ini Edo (Brenda), Blossom Chukwujekwu (Moses), Adesua Etomi (Debbie), Robert Peters (Pastors). Story by Emem Isong; Screenplay by Vivian Chiji; Director of Photography, Robert Peters; Director, Desmond Elliot; Executive Producer, Achivas Entertainment; Producers, Emem Isong/Ini Edo. ©2014
Knocking on Heaven’s Door is the most popular song in US entertainment history. The music has been used over dozen times by various artists. And about two or more films have been named after the title. Watch Lifted (2010). A little-known Hollywood film commemorating fallen US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The crowning moment in that film is when the Alabama middle schooler’s father gets killed by a female suicide bomber on his second tour. He won a competition when he sang Knocking on Heaven’s Door in his honor.
In 1990, Days of Thunder carried it as its title track. It is a widespread belief that Bob Dylan came up with this beautiful title and music composition. The song is like the cry of a soldier returning from a war front. Asking his Mama to put his badge away and “put my guns in the ground, ‘cause I can’t shoot them anymore.” It feels like a repentant cry at the gate of heaven for all that he did at the war front. No wonder the US military cherishes the song so much.
Nollywood version must be slightly different but sings the same song, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” for forgiveness. This Knocking on Heavens Door commits so many immoral and evil acts that the character needs prostrate at the altar and ask for heaven’s forgiveness.
In the Nollywood version, Brenda (Ini Edo) is a journalist and parishioner of the church. Pastor Moses (Blossom Chukwujekwu) and his wife Debbie are steep deep in the church. But he is never satisfied with how hard his wife Debbie tries to please him, is abusive of her. Debbie (Adesua Etomi), the obedient wife of Pastor Moses, can do his laundry by hand so she can clean all the oily creases in the collars. And Tom (Majid Michel) is a character from the other side promoting the music business.
With this ensemble, Knocking on Heaven’s Door is a sure winner. First is a rapid exchange dialogue between Tom and Debbie, bordering on sin, of smoking in the house of the Lord, blah, blah, blah. “You don’t smoke in a church. Don’t you have respect for God?” Tom pulls heavily on the cigarette. “Hey, I’m an addict. Shoot me….I saw you performing in there. Impressive. I do, however, sense a tension in your voice. Man problem or Money?” His rhetorics hypnotize and paralyze Debbie’s arms down. Tom gets a toe-hold on Debbie’s state of mind: Her abuse by Moses at home.
Moses berates his wife Debbie when she complains about him forcing her to have a fourth abortion. He beats her, and she passes out. Shortly after, Tom shows up at a party where Moses, Debbie, and Brenda are present. In bed at home, Moses queried the relationship between his wife and Tom. It was for the simple fact that Tom had asked Debbie to join his music label. The kiss Debbie kissed Moses that night had not been forthcoming in a long time, and that is not him Debbie kissing but “someone else.” The evening ends with a slap to her jaw and rough sex, bordering rape, before he falls into a slumber. Debbie quietly bears it all.
Brenda, the parishioner in the church and a journalist, is Pastor Moses’s long-time secret rendezvous. Tom knows Brenda so well as a pushover among men. The spinster wants to have Moses to herself, even as she won’t care flirting with Tom, who doesn’t care for her type. When Moses couldn’t let Debbie go for the audition for the two million Naira contract, she has had it. But not for Moses. He gives her another trashing that makes her run in the arms of Tom. While there, Moses comes to Brenda’s apartment, and they drink and dance and end up in Moses’s house, where, from a bit of push by Brenda, he falls and breaks his neck dead. Brenda, Knowing Debbie is at Tom’s, called and impersonated Moses. Brenda frames Tom as he is in Moses’s house when the police get there and accuse him of the murder.
Desmond Elliot must have made his characters in Knocking on Heaven’s Door more mature than his previous work in Bursting Out (2010). But one characteristic of both films that stand out is the rhetorical lines he always gives his principal characters. In Bursting Out, Zara (Genevieve Nnaji) spills out her disappointment in Majid Michel in a rare moment of truth. Majid also expressed the most memorable monologue that gets me teary-eyed every time. Here in Knocking on Heaven’s Door, Tom (Majid Michel) lays another big one on me:
“I don’t get it, Debbie. Why are you still with him after four miscarriages?”
“I’m a Christian, a gospel singer. Do you know what that means to people out there? I’m a role model. Moses is a monstrous man but as faithful as he can be.”
“Debbie, you are twenty million Nairas poorer. Do you know why? Because you slammed the door on twenty million nairas deal. Worst of all, he humbles you.”
With the now cowed and teary eyes, Debbie cries, “Stop! Stop! Please stop!”
Tom pulls hard on his cigarette and puffs out the smoke:
I love my vices; I love my smokes; I love my wines, I love my fast cars, and I used to love my girls until I met you. (Beat). And then Debbie, I met you. You were the game changer….Do you think I read those Bibles to impress you? I read those Bibles to impress Him (points upward). Why? Maybe one day, He’ll listen to the first prayer I ever prayed. And look past my failings and to love you and make you mine. (Thoughtful). But I want to make those vows, those same vows that Moses made and broke. I want to make those vows mine. (Voice cracks) I never break those vows. I’m going to love you. I’ll love you every step of the way and cherish you till death do us part…. If you love me, Debbie, let’s go on this ride.
Moses lacks self-confidence in himself, a characteristic he experienced in his childhood when he took a kitchen knife at his father for beating on his mother. The expose didn’t clarify that he killed his father in the flashback, but how he treats Debbie explains it. Debbie is so afraid that she “may go to bed alive and wake up dead one of these days.” Didn’t we experience the violent, abusive relationship in Private Storm (2010)? The control-freak (Alex), Ramsey Nouah, couldn’t give Jina (Omotola Jalade-Ekende) a breath of air.
Knocking on Heaven’s Door is like the knocking grace of Adesua Etomi at the door of Nollywood. It indeed answers her livingroom prayer, asking God what she is doing wrong and that He should show him the way. Well, God shows her the right way to Nollywood. Here, in Nollywood, God opens the door to her glory with her debut in this film.