The Man Of God

“The Man of God” follows the story of Samuel (Akah Nnani), who abandons home due to constant abuse from his father. Leaving not only his family, but also his faith to lead a wayward life that eventually leads to him posing as a servant of God. It also follows his relationships with three women; his friend, Rekya (Dorcas Shola-Fapson), Teju (Osas Ighodaro), who loves him and especially Joy (Atlanta Bridget Johnson), who he falls in love with.

There are many things to critique about the film but we shall start from the few positives, one of which is the performance of the main actors which is either good or above average. Akah Nnani himself is not bad. In some scenes he is able to display convincing emotions, particularly anger. However it seems that he does not bring enough of the masculine energy needed to make his portrayal of the ‘bad boy’ as convincing as it could have been.

Atlanta Bridget Johnson does a good job as Joy but Osas Ighodaro’s performance is the most impressive. She does a surprisingly convincing portrayal of a university student, and then transitions smoothly into the role of a pastor’s wife with all the carriage and well-dressed confidence that is required. She gives us what is easily the film’s best scene: her confrontation with Sam after his betrayal, masterfully displaying anger and pain and outshining Akah Nnani in his attempt to match her.

The costuming is one of the only other things that the film gets right. Osas’s gowns are colorfully elegant, her hats intricately beautiful, and Akah Nnani’s Sunday suits are smart fitting and even his casual wears are not lacking. Now, to the bad.

The impracticality of many of the plot developments might be the film’s biggest failing, and this—judging by the number of its obvious flaws—is saying something. Sam meets Joy and one look at her delicately fair skin and grey eyes, and even before their one-minute conversation, he falls irrevocably in love. A few scenes later, we see him penning his undying love to her in a letter, telling her not to run from him just because he is the prodigal son of a renowned prophet; ‘Where you go, I will go, your people will be my people,’ And the fact that he says it twice only makes it cornier.

The film hardly employs any artistic techniques to advance the plot. Every development is simply told to us through dialogue. We see Sam and Joy laughing and talking in one scene and in the next he asks her why she has been avoiding him for some time, in one scene he is asking Pastor BJ (Prince Nelson Nwerem) to help him find out Joy’s whereabouts because he has not heard from her in a while and in the very next scene he is confronting the pastor for not getting back to him since the last time. It almost seems as if the filmmakers are hurrying towards an invisible finish line and it leaves the film with about as much maturity and complexity as a high school play.

The film’s dialogue is terrible and it is a major reason as to why Sam and Joy’ s romance is not compelling. Their conversations are devoid of any real substance needed to keep the audience invested in their love story. And the problem is not just in Nnani and Johnson’s lines. Perhaps the best example of this lousy writing is when Rekya tells Sam that she plans to leave Nigeria for a place with ‘blue skies, nice music’ and men with money. And she says all this while sitting in a house she has just bought which makes the statement doubly ridiculous.

The camera quality is good and it gives a fine sheen to the University of Lagos where a lot of the shooting takes place, but the combination of the failure in story and dialogue on the one hand and direction and editing on the other makes the film appear like a bad product with terrible packaging.

Very disturbing is the character of Samuel’s father, Pastor Josiah (Jude Chukwuka). We see him raising questionable prayer points in a church service: ‘Let the aeroplane of my enemies crash into the sea.’ And a little while later we see him mercilessly lashing Samuel for leaving the service and he continues this chastisement until Samuel grows up and leaves home.

At first it appears that he is meant to symbolize the dangers of religious fanaticism in the same way that Samuel’s character later on in the movie symbolises the fake and venal men of God in the country. But after a few scenes, it seems we are to see him as the good shepherd who tries to win back his lost sheep and even as the voice of Samuel’s conscience. But if this is so, then why did the good shepherd heartlessly beat his sheep? What about the aeroplane of the enemies? And doesn’t the film then consciously or unconsciously endorse abuse in the name of moral guidance?

Most likely the filmmakers did not even notice the message they were preaching by this and were more concerned in pushing the film to production. And last but certainly not least, what was all that talk about Fela’s music being devilish?