Beyond the sex in the 'Heart of Men'

I wanted to do a review of the pointlessly controversial Ghanaian movie, 'Heart of Men' the moment I saw the press preview at the Silverbird Cinema a couple of weeks ago but I decided to wait until after the premiere. Now that some members of the public have seen the so-called soft porn I might as well go ahead and speak my mind.

Obviously the marketing strategy of the producers was to confuse the public with all the unnecessary sex scenes which cleverly became the focus of discussions the moment the trailer was released on the internet. Yes, sex sells so why not cash in on it? Certainly it whipped up a lot of interest and people were discussing it on internet forums and on social networks such as FaceBook.

Of course in a perverted kind of way, it is always interesting to see 'celebrities' bare a bit more flesh, and satisfy the curiosity in our minds about what makes them tick sexually. Have you ever wondered how Paris Hilton became an international celebrity by doing nothing and looking stupid? Or why Ray J scored his biggest hit yet after his not so private romp with Kim Kardashian? Well, the same cannot be said for R. Kelly but that's another story. Yes, sex sells! So it wouldn't exactly be a bad idea to see a little deep into the thighs of Jackie Appiah; or the curves of Yvonne Nelson; or one breast of Martha Ankomah; or even the hairy backside of Majid Michel. But of course it depends on how it comes out.

Since 'Heart of Men' is not some secret sex tape that found it's way onto the internet but rather a movie production, one would expect that these sex scenes would have at least been well scripted into the story but as the Executive Producer, Alhaji Abdul Sallam Mumuni said to me in an interview, the sex scenes were not part of the script (yea they found their way in there miraculously). After watching the movie I concluded that the sex scenes were put in there just for the hell of it.

Again in an interaction I had with the Executive Producer, I found out that the attempt to hit viewers with such explicit sex scenes stemmed from the groundbreaking movie, 'Perfect Picture'. According to Alhaji Mumuni, his research department conducted a survey and realized that Ghanaians want to see more sex scenes, hence the success of 'Perfect Picture'. If indeed he pays people to do research for him and this was all they could bring to the table; then he should fire them.

The success of 'Perfect Picture' was not because of the last-minute steamy sex scene between Chris Attoh and Jackie Appiah or Nockus showing his butt crack in the streets but rather an interesting storyline and good production; something that cannot be said for 'Heart of Men'. The sex scene in 'Perfect Picture' was very relevant to the story because the couple was married for months and could not get it on in bed, so finally when it happened it was nice to see the fireworks. Having a threesome with a girl you raped several years ago and her room mate before your wedding as revenge was complete debauchery.

Looking beyond the sex scenes, 'Heart of Men' is almost empty. There were some bold attempts in cinematography with the way the story was being told but they couldn't carry it through properly. The first 20 minutes or so was too flashy; the dialogues were too fast and completely surreal. I felt like someone had hit the fast forward button and I didn't know were the story was going, and this was not as a result of good execution of suspense - don't get me wrong! The continuity was quite poor and it was not surprising to notice some confusion in the minds of people at the preview, who thought the events in the movie all happened in 24 hours. Well, the movie was somewhat shot in a similar sequence like the US drama series, 24, so I don't blame them for getting confused.

The detective scenes were not believable at all; the police were stiff and unreal both in their approach and comportment as policemen. The character Yvonne Nelson played, faked her death and some people were tried publicly in court for her death but when she suddenly reappeared to get married, no one raised concerns about it. Isn't it illegal to fake your death? Yea and they have the guts to talk about doing research! I could go on and on but let me leave you with this last scenario to sum up what I think about 'Heart of Men'. If you were in Navrongo and you were telling your friend about something going on in Accra would you say something like… “He is in Accra, Ghana”?