Jack and Jill

Jack and Jill is the story of two individuals living pretentious lifestyles in an attempt to find someone wealthy who will buy into their story and be their free pass into a life of luxury. Unfortunately for both of these individuals – Jack and Jill played by Eddie Watson and Ruth Kadiri respectively – they both end up with mirrors of their characters, themselves.

Does that sound like something you have read on NR recently? If so, there’s probably a reason for that. This movie is a mirror of so many older movies like Omotola’s “I belong” and Funke Akindele’s “Jenifa”. In fact it is more so entirely similar to the recent “My Rich Boyfriend” movie.

The movie does not stand out in originality but it does its due diligence with comedy. Not every actor in this movie had the comic timing to impress, amongst these the only two whose timing were consistent and markedly amusing was Ruth Kadiri and Roselyn Ngissah. Ruth Kadiri plays Jill the village girl cum city girl claiming to be on her way back to the States to meet her father who is a German Engineer in Germany? – confused? I am too. Somewhere along the line, Ruth manages to get the audience to legitimately begin to question her sanity. Then there was Roselyn Ngissah who had a minimal role as the co-househelp to Jack who is determined to bring him down by all means or milk him dry for keeping his secrets. Roselyn is effortless in her scenes and makes anyone else who is not as effortless seem forced.

On the other hand there was Eddie Watson, who plays Jack, and occasionally had one or two clips of true ‘funny moments’ in a mix of five supposed-to-be-funny scenes. There are moments when he seems to be putting in too much effort that the comedy does not flow naturally. But let’s add this disclaimer here that regardless of his failings, the Eddie Watson of Jack and Jill is no where as terrible as the Eddie Watson of the “Single Six” days.

When you are watching a Pascal Amanfo movie, especially the light comedy kind, there are a few things you expect. These are also known as things that if seen in other movies would cause raised eyebrows but in Pascal Amanfo movies it’s just another “Pascal Amanfo concept”. For instance, you expect asides where actors just fall out of character and start talking to the audience like it’s a reality show. You expect forwardness, where the romance materializes from nowhere, friends turn to enemies within the blink of an eye, and the direction of the story changes midsequence and we are barely half way through the film.

So when the movie changed direction completely about 10 minutes till the end and an entirely new romance story was appended to the end of this movie, we just kind of shrug it off as that which is to be expected with a Pascal Amanfo movie.

The movie progresses pretty rapidly and is a light simple watch just don’t expect everything to be cognitive. Leave your brain at home and enjoy the comedy, and when it turns into a romance five seconds before the closing credits enjoy that too.