Title: POWER HOUSE (1 – 4)

AKA: CAREER WOMAN (1 &2)  w/seq BARRISTER ANITA (1 & 2)

Starring: Jackie Appiah, Frederick Leonard, Frances Odega, Calista Okoronkwo

Synopsis:

Barrister Anita is a successful prosecutor that never lost a case until the day she found her husband in a compromising position.

Review:

Barrister Anita (Jackie Appiah) never heard of the word ‘lose’ because  she was a lawyer with a perfect track record. She was happily married to Richard (Frederick Leonard) and life was sweet. But unbeknownst to her, Richard was exposed to temptation on more than one occasion and one day he found himself in a pickle. 

The subplot included a college campus drama that surrounded four young women. Of course their number one topic of discussion was men. One of the women was Queen (Calista Okoronkwo), who was Anita’s sister. Queen made it clear that the man of her dreams would be a man like Richard. While she fantasized about her sister’s husband another plot was introduced where one of the women found true love. 

Another plot centered on Anita’s house girl and gateman. The house help served as the eyes and ears in the household and also added humor to the story. 

Let’s Talk. To get straight to the point this movie was a huge disappointment. The title implies that the story would be comprised primarily of Anita’s career but the drama was all over the map. 

By the end of part three the story still had no clear path and it became evident that it never would. The drama continuously introduced new and uninteresting plots and actually became sleep inducing. It was like a dying soap opera that finally succumbed in part four. 

The story was actually insulting to one’s intelligence. For instance, in the court case that Anita lost why didn’t one of the other lawyers step up to the plate when it was evident that she wasn’t of sound mind? The people on her legal team conveniently sat there like dead ducks. 

Also ridiculous was the primary story (which was actually backburner) where Anita and her family took her husband to court. Is it not a conflict of interest for Anita to be a lawyer on a case where her husband is being tried? How convenient that the culprit confessed instead of the writer finding a creative way to bring the truth to the surface. 

As for the subplots, they evoked one question: who cares? The campus drama was bland and the romance between the house staff wasn’t as funny as intended. And was one of Queen’s girlfriends really disfigured at the end of the movie? How melodramatic. Tsk, tsk. 

Performances? Frederick Leonard was the clear winner here. I’ve seen tons of Jackie Appiah movies and she’s a talented actress but I wasn’t so convinced of her characterization in this movie. Honestly, it may not have been her acting; it may be more about how she was directed to play the part. 

Needless to say the story left lots of room for improvement. It was too long, cumbersome, and off the mark. EJECT