Diamond World Film Production presents Kofi Adjorolo (Mr. Boateng), Jackie Appiah (Nikki), John Dumelo (Henry), Kalsium Sinare (Niki’s Mama), Biola Ige (Lavida), story by, by Ibrahim Seidu; Screenplay, Phil Efe Bernard; Director, joroloPhil Efe Bernard: Producer, Ibrahim Seidu. © 2010
I have two ideas about where to get a good, bellyful restaurant dinner in the states. Go to either a Chinese buffet or a Greek restaurant. No kidding, they feed you. That’s how I see most of the movies that come from either Nollywood or Ghallywood. They always overdo their goodness. Blackmail is one of those beautiful and entertaining projects Ghallywwood shoved onto us. It is a melodrama that starts with conflict but has a long drawn out scenes that make you take a nap through.
Don’t crucify me just yet. Blackmail has all the Ghallywood big hitters: Kofi Ajorolo (Mr. Boateng), John Dumalo (Henry), Jackie Appiah (Niki), Kalsioum Sinara (Niki’s Mama ), Biola Ige (Lavida).
Once more Kofi Ajorolo faces another young beauty only to end up disappointed by her, the same way he gets butchered by Genevieve in Sleepwalker (2009), or at the hands of Yvonne Nelson in the 2009 flick, Material Girl where he instructed, unknowingly, the murder of his son. All along, he wants to “discover his lost youth,” as he would say in Material Girl. In Blackmail, in the hands of his third wife, Lovida, Mr. Boateng faces the worst public disgrace and embarrassment.
The two corporate heads of Mr. Boateng’s business empire happens to have a romantic past. By accident, Lavida, now the third wife of Boateng, wants to rekindle the long lost love affair with the Board of Directors’ Chairman Henry, whom she Lavida appoints. Henry is now married to Niki, who is pregnant with their first baby on the way, and a hefty mortgage to pay. He gets strapped when Lavida blackmails him to leave his family for her if he wants to maintain his job and office with her company. You can imagine this story to the finish. However, I’ll lend you a clue: this movie is Fatal Attraction turned on its head.
Blackmail has some notable literary characteristics. The title is not self-explanatory or a sellout but leaves doubt with the viewer and an expectation bothering on gunplay, kidnappings, and gangland. When you sit comfortably in your living room with a bottle of beer in hand, or a glass of wine, fine wine, you’re expecting something good to come out of that screen that will worth your time and money. We’re Americans; we value our time the same way we value our dollar. You immediately ask at cotton up, “the what?”, the “when,” the” how?” and the “why?”.So I turned on this movie with the objective mind of a reviewer, with no bias, no idiosyncrasy. All I wanted to do was to see and review Blackmail.
Of course, I watched Blackmail, the first time, in earnest as just a viewer, not concerned with plot elements, emotional effect, and central idea or theme. After that first viewing, I went in to consult with my literary mind. I asked these questions as to the essence of the film. The second time I watched this flick, I asked myself the most critical question: Why will I or anybody watch this film.?
They will watch it because of John Demelo; they’ll watch it because of Jackie Appiah; they will because of babyface woman, Biola Ige, seemingly spoilt; or even more so, Kalsium Sinare. She loves young ones. I’ve seen her date young Majid Michel in Open Scandal (2010). Koffie Ajarolo, oh boy, he loves women he’s two times older. He has to discover his lost youth as he once says in a film.
As a serious project, I have to ask the filmmaker this severe question as to what the film’s trying to convey. To present the character of Lavida, which I find fascinating, or the statement or central focus of the story. To pursue the primary focus or statement is easy: Blackmail. But the character of Lavida (Vida means life), is enthralling and exciting; her unique style holds the center of the story from falling apart. As in Spanish, Lavida is a crazy and hustling person, who loves life to the point of craziness, and like she rightly says, she’s about, “money, power, and status.” I guess the only thing that she couldn’t regain is Henry after she lost him, and instead, falls from four stories high to her death in the hands of Henry.
The other literary mechanics used in the film is the use of a storm and the shattering of the wall picture. When the image crashes, that portends the crisis point in the story: things to come. The dialogue is quaint, refined, conversational, and contextual. I do, however, maintain that this movie is out to entertain. Upon that level, I cannot hold Blackmail on a severe level of cinematic art.