Title: LOST IN HIS GLORY (1 & 2)

Starring:  Bibi Bright, John Dumelo, Prince David Osei, Jasmine Baroudi, Kalsoume Sinare

Synopsis: 

An unruly woman transforms her life into one of religious faith after a tumultuous life and the death of her sister. 

Review:

Abena was bitter about something. She had no use for the word of God or her mother. She had dreams of becoming a recording artist and sung at nightclub in pursuit of her career. 

Her mother took ill and the hospital required a huge payout in order to perform surgery. Abena was no stranger to turning a few tricks but figured why shoulder the medical expenses alone?  She introduced her innocent sister to prostitution and it’s the first and last career she ever knew.

Let’s Talk.  This is a drama. Most of part one was used to set up the story. We see that Abena (Bibi Bright) was the breadwinner of the family as she helped put food on the table and paid her sister’s school fees.  Her drug-dealing boyfriend physically abused her and we learn of his rivalry with Manny (John Dumelo). We also got a glimpse of Abena’s childhood that gave clues to why she had a chip on her shoulder.

A general rule of thumb in scriptwriting is that by thirty minutes into a movie an audience should know what the story is about or at least where it’s headed. At the end of part one it was still unclear.  Was it about domestic abuse? Drugs/gang war? Family drama? So much time was spent on story execution that the heart of this story didn’t come to light until part two.

In part two the story shifted to raising money to pay the mother’s hospital fees and Abena stole money from her boyfriend, Jeff (Prince David Osei). As many times as he beat her ass, he should have been the last person that she stole from.  

The rivalry between Jeff and Manny was unnecessary and went nowhere. Speaking of Jeff, the house he lived in is so overused in African movies.  It’s time for some new locations. Also, Manny was supposed to be a hard-nose drug dealer with women at his beck and call, so for him to fall in love so quickly with Abena’s sister seemed out of character for him.

At the end of this movie there’s a six-minute gospel solo by Bibi Bright. Six whole minutes. It makes one realize that the movie isn’t about art, it’s about self-promotion. Bibi is the writer of the movie and she played the lead role. To give credit where it’s due, she got it done. The movie was produced, packaged and on store shelves. However, her goal is yet to be accomplished because her acting is just okay. As for her singing it’s less than fabulous and that’s putting it mildly. If you watch the movie closely, you’ll see that her singing is actually off track with the sound.

Speaking of self-promotion we also saw the “J. Melo” (John Dumelo) logo on Manny’s cell phone. Slick advertising such as this distracts the audience from the story. In that moment, I saw John Dumelo and not Manny, the character he was portraying.

Ultimately our main character, Abena, transformed from denying God’s grace to being entirely “lost in his glory” and it was somewhat hard to swallow. The captivating plot in the movie was the short-lived romance between Manny and Afia. The chemistry between them worked and Ms. Baroudi nailed it as the innocent Afia. RECOMMEND 

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