Dominion TV, A Sami’s Pictures, and A Frank Rajah Arase Film present Majid Michel (Reverend Kwesi Todd), Jackie Appiah (Ruth), James Gardner (Pastor Teddy Hanson), Kalsoum Sinare (Grace), Kofi Adjorlolo (Bishop), Sonia Ibrahim (Anita), Duncan Williams (Archbishop) Producer. Director, Tunde Adekoya. © 2023.
“A Pastor. He’s also married, started dating your cousin, got her pregnant, and persuaded her to have an abortion that went wrong and eventually killed her.” Sarcastically, “Man of God.” An evening news telecaster on the program Ladies Lounge concludes the report of the latest church scandal in Accra.
Talking of The Man of God, in the epigraph above, let me run a gossip by you about Shola Dade’s and Bolani Austen-Peter’s directing wonder of The Man of God (2022) in their way if you don’t mind. This is juicy, trust me. In The Man of God, Samuel (Akah Nnani), an epicurean for all I know, drops out of college when he follows a girl who lives on the street and has lots of money on her mind. One of those girls your mother would warn you not to fool around with. Rekya (Dorcas Shola), was his college sweetheart bunking in the same room. She is in and out of the country, scamming the world, bringing in money, and sharing it with Samuel.
Samuel’s wife, Teju (Osas Iahodaro), had taken him to her church, and he had become a believer. The sensation in the church is all good. He fits in and even excelled in church affairs. He had almost fallen out with his church for his “Michael Jackson” move in front of the choir when Rekya got in town with lots of money. They meet and warm up to each other:
Rekya, “Church boy? You? Oh, please, you criminal? I can’t believe you married that stringy girl… The kind of money in church business. It surpasses prostitution, politics, gambling, and anything else. Church is where the money is. Guy, if I could be a hypocrite, I’d become a pastor myself. I swear.”
Samuel, a man torn between his faith and desires, is the central figure in this gripping narrative. In a moment of desperation, he wakes his wife, Teju, and lies to her, claiming that God spoke to him. “Three times he called me, ‘Samuel! Samuel! Samuel!’” Driven by greed and infatuation, Samuel enters the church with his eyes on the money, a high y’alla lady, Joy (Atlanta Bridget Johnson) in the choir, and the Vineyard of Love Church. However, Samuel soon realizes he is not cut out for the cloth and decides to retire; unbeknownst to his wife, he plans to escape to Canada to chase after Rekya.
However, the grandeur of the abortion issue in Man of God isn’t equal to the issue in A Taste of Sin. They are like night and day. Pastor Samuel had an affair with an obscure character in The Man of God. Her sister could not even be listened to in the investigation of her sister’s death as no one cared. Pastor Teddy messes up with the high yalla lady, Anita (Sonia Ibrahim), in the church choir, gets her pregnant, and has an ultimate abortion, leading to her death. A tragedy. A scandal to the most significant proportion.
The issue turns into a national scandal. I like the expositions on how the scandal spread: the talk shows, churches debating, and the interviews with school kids and market women, all of which give the drama more flesh. Pastor Teddy’s incarceration, release from prison, and confession begging for mercy from the Bishop and God in beautiful scenes provide A Taste of Sin with a remarkable body. And unlike its counterpart, A Taste of Sin’s center character, Pastor Teddy has the urge to satisfy his wife’s desire to have outside kids, but he is not too sure. He helps with the abortion, thinking that it would please his wife if she knew. See how his mother, Grace (Kalsoum Sinare), blows her top off when she learns of the abortion of the only grandchild she would have hoped for.
Grace, “Did you do it, Pastor Teddy?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You did? You did know I desperately needed a grandchild, knowing that your wife could never give us a child. And God blessed you with a child…”
Pastor Teddy intercepts, “ -And?!”
The writer’s character, Pastor Teddy, enters the confession stage, prostrates himself, and postulates before his church’s clergy. The church takes him back with the confessions and all, and in the end, his wife gets naturally pregnant. This is a full-circle redemption, from sinning to confessions, punishment, and redemption.
I may ask what Reverend Todd’s (Majid Michel) essence is in the story, except for his feisty wife, who doesn’t want to set eyes on her mother-in-law. I’m asking about Reverend Todd’s role in advancing the story. I see him messing with a female church member, and he must have committed many transgressions against the church and his faith.
Reverend Todd, “Tell me, if I were to ask you out on a date behind closed doors, would you take the offer?”
Errand Girl, “Reverend, I would be scared to take the offer.”
Reverend Todd, “Why?”
Errand Girl, “Because you are my pastor.”
“And pastors don’t have feelings.”
Errand Girl, “Besides Pastor, I’m not your type.”
“And how would you know my type?”
“I’m just an errand girl.”
Beckoning to her with his index finger, “Come closer…”
Reverend, “Lilly, can you keep a secret?”
Sometimes, writers create or manufacture characters next to the lead as a counterpoint to the main character. It seemed like Reverend Todd would take Pastor Teddy’s place in the pulpit, after Teddy’s fall, yet Todd goes into a coma, and his wife sees a revelation that only Ruth (Jackie Appiah), Pastor Teddy’s pious wife, can pray for him to come back to life—talking about convoluted plot mechanics. What happens to Pastor Teddy is purely unfortunate. It’s like throwing the baby with the bath water. His situation is regrettable. The writer throws in, evocatively, though, pathos in his character.
Samuel doesn’t repent after incarceration in The Man of God—not on screen. Hairy-faced, shaggy, and unkempt, he goes back home to his village, to his father, walks straight to his father’s church, and falls in his father’s arms. His father, a man of God, accepts his prodigal son back into the fold the same way Pastor Teddy, tears in his eyes, asks for forgiveness and redemption from the Bishop in A Taste of Sin.
I have an acting takeaway from a scene in this film that stands out. In the scene when Pastor Teddy faces his wife, the predicament he has gotten into, first with flirting with girls, later with the issue of pregnancy, abortion, and death of a girl in his church choir. To face his wife and the world to whom he has sold his last reservoir of respect. He is in a daze-like one, smitten by the ghosts of his forefathers. You look in his eyes and see guilt, shame, remorse, and the instance when a mortal man would like the earth to swallow him.
Arase’s Who Loves Me (2016) movie puts Jackie Appiah, Majid Michel, and Kalsoum Sinare in the same film when Majid’s mother slits her wrist and bleeds to death, to donate her heart to save Jackie, the crush of her son. Jackie weighed, then, 130. Cute. Bulging big eyes, Majid, a mere 150, is wanton and never takes himself seriously on film. Sinare had just taken her Mama G throne in Ghallywood. In A Taste of Sin, they have grown up in status …and still look suitable for the camera.
It is evident that God sure wants these pastors to come face to face with the sins they commit. And Pastor Teddy’s relationship with Anita is exposed to the world. Reverend Todd, for no known medical reason, goes into a coma and later comes out of it with confessions for his sins. I was not entirely carried away by the acting in the scene where Reverend Todd falls, convulsing on the floor. I laughed, seeing the homeboy on the floor and thinking of the stunt he pulls in Knocking on Heaven’s Door (2014), where he had his cake and ate it. And here is my guy, on the floor? I said to myself out loud, “What a joke!”
Abortion and child issues in Nollywood movies are prominent. During my fourteen years of reviewing African films, English speaking, there have been more dramas on these two themes than any other. I have seen mothers-in-law drive out the wives of their children for not giving them grandchildren, “You are a witch!” some would yell; some husbands hire outside men, as virile as they could be, to have sex with their wives even so they watch. Imagine! So, they can have forebears in Beyond Secret (2011). It is no surprise that Grace is going haywire for losing a grandchild to abortion. She must have pushed the young couple (Pastor Teddy and Ruth) to panic with her nagging about a “grandchild,” hence, her son and daughter-in-law are having the bitter taste of sin.
A Taste of Sin Pastors and Reverends are guilty of offending the church; they have been tested by the devil and tried by their souls and society. Indeed, the movie resembles confession and redemption galore of the youths in Holy Cloth. Yet, “I don’t trust any ministry, anyone who hasn’t been tested or tried.” Archbishop Nicolas Duncan-Williams, in his statement on forgiveness and redemption. How about that?!