Nollywood – Ghanaian Movie Review
The Game
Story, Screenplay & Director – Frank Rajah Arase
HEROES PRODUCTIONS
Starring Actors/Actresses:
Majid Michel – Teddy Elbert
John Dumelo – Ronnie Lawson
Yvonne Okoro – Brandy
Yvonne Nelson – Shennel Johnson
Beverly Afaglo – Detective
Nadia Archer Kang – Jackie Oppong
Johannes Maier – Bill
Lion De Angelo – Fred
Fred Nuamah – Jake Freeman
Ebi Bright – Letoya Benson
Themes Explored:
Love
Jealousy
Betrayal
Deceit
Sibling Rivalry
My Rating- 58%
Synopsis:
Shennel (Yvonne Nelson) is an assassin who is hired by Teddy Elbert (Majid Michel) to kill his brother Bill (Johannes Maier) in order to receive an insurance payout. Things however are not as clear cut as they first appear to be. Ronnie Lawson (John Dumelo) is a business man that runs his late father’s multimillion business empire. Brandy (Yvonne Okoro) is lying to the media that she is engaged to Ronnie Lawson to boost business with her modelling agency. Little does she know that she has been busted when Ronnie Lawson turns up at her agency posing as a wannabe model.
**************SPOILERS**************
This movie at the beginning felt so much like the Ghanaian movie Naked Faces in the way that the characters were introduced. We are introduced to the cast as players in a game. Alongside their faces targeted through a viewfinder we see their vital statistics. I felt that there were too many characters introduced at the beginning. As the movie had not even started it was too much information to take in and to remember who was who.
Teddy pretends to fall for Shennel only to reveal that he knows her true person and wants to marry her for business purposes. When all is revealed at the end of the movie, all these middle scenes did not actually make sense. It is all very well having explosive twists, but everything that comes before the twists has to tie in together with the ending and for me this didn’t.
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Notable Dialogue
Teddy – What do you think of love at first sight?
Shennel – I think it saves time
*BAM*
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The guy that plays Majid’s brother Johannes Maier and the girl that plays his secretary Nadia Archer Kang were ABSOLUTELY DREADFUL. If you are going to bring waka passes on set why on earth give them starring roles and have them speaking so much? It really is highly irritating! I don’t know if they brought the yellow in just to brighten up the place but it was just torturous watching the both of them.
Yvonne Nelson did her thang. She played the Femme Fatale role very well. She also scored highly in the fashion stakes. Scene by scene she was dressed to kill (no pun intended) Yvonne Okoro was great. I enjoyed the scenes involving her and John Dumelo the most. They have a great chemistry, great banter and are enjoyable to watch. My favourite scene was where Brandy tried to use a fake Ronnie to convince the real Ronnie that he in fact was the real Ronnie Lawson, an affluent business man. This scene was hilarious.
We see the way in which one thinks that a rich man is supposed to behave as opposed to what is, from the dress, to the swag down to the method of eating. Brandy tells the real Ronnie, who she believes at this time to be a struggling actor that her fiancé Ronnie is in the house and so he has to fix up before meeting him. She starts pulling and tugging on his shirt all in order to make him decent in preparation to meet this rich man, who is in fact a poor man in disguise. The Irony is stark.
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Why does Brandy never think about the fact that the real Ronnie, or even those that know him may come and expose her, especially as she is being so vocal in the media about the fake engagement. I was surprised when Ronnie decided to go along with her plan to “play” Ronnie Lawson when it was claimed that he was a very private person, that few people had seen who shunned the public eye.
If this were the case, that he wanted to keep his identity quiet then why at the meeting with her uncles are the media there taking pictures after she told her uncle already that she was very private and didn’t want any media there. Why does Ronnie stand there posing for pictures instead of shielding the supposed unwanted attention? The guy even starts answering questions as though he has turned up for a press conference, to the extent that he is whipping out his chequebook and donating to charity. Did he write the cheque to give Brandy a clue as to who he is, or was he just generally trying to live up to being the real Ronnie as requested?
I didn’t really get was why Teddy would want to kill his brother Bill, as whatever money he made would have had to share with Shennel, plus the fact he was already living off a large inheritance. He wasn’t living in poverty so what gives? What made him hate his brother, that whole thing didn’t even make sense at all. The relationship between the brothers wasn’t even explored to give the viewers an inkling as to why he would go so far as to kill him and not give a frigg about it. The simple explanation given was that Bill was favoured more by his father. I’m sorry that doesn’t cut it as far as I am concerned.
Another thing I didn’t get was why Ronnie Lawson after he had made Brandy fall in love with him ran off and then hooked her up with another man. It didn’t say that he was an alcoholic or on drugs so what gives? By that stage he knew that she didn’t care that he was poor (supposedly) and she even went as far as to sell her things and to take out a loan to raise the money for his mother’s supposed operation, that means she loves you fool! If I were Brandy I would have been PISSED that I had sold off all my stuff for some big lie AND had my emotions messed with by bringing another man into the equation. Yes she too was deceitful in the beginning but his trickery took it a step too far, and for apparently no good reason.
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Conclusion:
I would recommend this movie. The picture quality was excellent. Despite the flaws I did enjoy watching because it had so many layers to it. It kept me gripped by adding new dimensions to the plot every step of the way. I think that the twist went a little too far so much so that it was actually confusing. There was a twist in the twist in the twist and I was also confused by the significance of the card game the scenes. I got that they were trying to tie in the “game” theme but it all seemed rather unnecessary. I think perhaps on second viewing I would “get” it a lot more but then it was not executed well enough for me to want to watch it again.
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