Hire A Man

So we’ve all seen “The Wedding Date” right? Great! Then you have seen this movie. And if you have not seen the aforementioned movie but you read the title of this movie, then you already know what this movie is about.

In Hire A Man, our female lead, played by Zynell Zuh, lies to her mother that she has a fiance when she learns that her obnoxious little sister will be coming to their annual retreat with her own fiance. Obnoxious little sister, Teni, is played by Nancy Isime and Teni’s fiance is played by IK Ogbonna. Tishe is now forced to find a fiance for hire before the retreat. She eventually decides to settle with a guy she assumes to be her obnoxious neighbor’s loafer of a roommate. She offers him some money, he thinks about it for a while, and he eventually decides to come along with her.

Even in the most formulaic of romantic comedies, the lack of originality should not make the movie unwatchable. However, in this one there are a lot of gaping holes that make what could have been an enjoyable yet forgettable 100 minutes into a questionable movie watching experience. For starters, how do you pretend to be engaged to a person and plan to bring him in front of your family members but it never crossed your mind to coordinate stories. Are you serious? You did not take out time to figure each other’s birthdays or favorite any-things? In fact, forget that one sef, that might be a bit too extra, but you didn’t even come up with a story about how you met…?

This movie makes you question whether you really want to keep on watching especially in the first parts before you get to the retreat. To be fair, all you have in those parts is Zynell oscillating between performing and yelling, Bayray fluctuating between accents and Daniel doing his best to be a badt guy. By the time we get to the resort at least we have some buffer. We thank God for Shaffy Bello and Keppy Ekpenyong. These two play the parents of the sisters, or should I say, the overly modern parents of the sisters. Which one is the one that a man will just walk up to your father and say ‘oh yeah, I’m her fiance’ and he will shake his hand. Really? Without Gin? Kolanut? Or Palmwine? Where are your people? Na only you waka come? But let’s leave that matter behind.

The performing highlight of this movie was Nancy Isime. I’ve seen a few Nancy Isime films but her performance never quite struck me as much as it did here. I’m not sure if it’s the unseriousness of the rest of the movie juxtaposed with her succinct performance that highlighted it, but it shone. It doesn’t strike you initially in the scenes with the sisters but it is when she and her fiance are alone at night and fighting that you sit back and think “alright alright alright… home girl is not here to play”. Between her weave-slingings and short hair-revealings, Isime was a treat to watch.

But you all know that I am really just here for Enyinna right? Bless the costume department and all those undersized shirts that he was given to wear with his chest ripping through it. Oh was I not supposed to mention that? What else would anyone be paying to watch this at a theater for? It definitely wasn’t for the chemistry. It was in the last 20 minutes of this 60 minutes that anyone decides that they even want to attempt to build a chemistry. In movies of this nature the chemistry starts to build somewhere in the middle but whenever this one tries, the attempts don’t work out so well. By the time the end arrives, you have no choice but to accept what is being offered to you as a couple.

Don’t get me wrong, Hire A Man was funny to watch. Just sometimes, it was unintentional about its comedy. It’s a romantic comedy that seems to have lost its romance somewhere in the making and attempts to gather some shards together in the end and call it romance.