Stormy Hearts

Dear movie makers, it might come as a surprise to you and I say this with the greatest amount of respect, but sometimes it might be in your favor to release a movie straight to DVD instead of having a theatrical release. Throughout the duration of this movie my heart went out to all the unfortunate souls who actually had to pay money at a theatre to watch this.

In Stormy Hearts, a runs girl escapes her pimp and steals his money in order to start a new life for herself. She is a budding singer and soon secures as a gig at a local bar in the new place she’s in. She meets a music producer who is recovering from a heartbreak inflicted on him by his ex/prior discovery. She broke his heart and left him for a new producer and he is left alone to feel broken.

The opening scene of this movie introduced, what was probably the most entertaining concept for me through this 90 minute ordeal – a gangsta Kelechi Udegbe. The idea of taking Kelechi out of his usual comic relief roles was probably one of the most original things done in this movie. The comic relief role in the film was then given to Gregory Ojefua and his ‘girlfriend/study buddy’. Theirs was an interesting dynamic to watch and we’re going to go ahead and assume that carricaturish nature of it all was the actual intent of the writer. Needless to say, whichever way that swings, Ojefua was 100% in character and has you 100% convinced that he is his character.

Unfortunately we cannot say the same about everyone else in this movie. Thankfully Watson was not painful to watch in this movie, as Basi, but then again his character wasn’t fleshed out to any perceptible degree. There was not much to his character aside from the heartbreak hotel. Basi immediately goes from having his heart broken by his ex/previous discovery to discovering a new girl and immediately falling for her (guy! Shey you no dey learn?)

Speaking of the new girl – Ella, played by Christiana Martin – is immensely confident in front of the camera and seems like a natural. Unfortunately, there’s not much in the script or the character or the story to help us realize whether she has any true acting chops. So if we credit her for anything, it is for being comfortable in front of the camera.

If there’s one thing that was unnecessarily peeving about this movie, it was the music. If you will have us believe that the character’s voice is for the gods then you need to be consistent about it. Work needs to be put in to make sure that whenever she sings the audience feels and believes that she is a great singer (think of characters from “Beyonce: The President’s daughter” and “Knocking on Heaven’s Door“).

It seemed like neither the director nor the writers were concerned about the cohesiveness of the storyline because too many things don’t add up. She’s a great singer, yet when she’s singing in the bar she’s just singing over someone else’s track. She’s running from a dangerous man, yet when she moves in to the new apartment she leaves her front door open 99% of the time. She’s afraid of being caught, yet she’s up in here turning the entire neighborhood into her squad. He’s hurt from a past relationship, yet even though the new chic sings the same song as the old one did (talk about a sign from heaven) he still falls for her in the exact same order. Dear writer, are you even trying?

All in all, Stormy Hearts turned out to be a very ‘on the surface’ storyline. It really wasn’t about a lot and whatever it was about was not anything original. The beginning parts dragged up until –  I dunno – the closing credits and if I did not have to review it, I probably would have quit at 10mins.