Deyemi Okanlawon, Enado Odigie, Yvonne Jegede Fawole, Seun Akindele, Amarachi Audu, Henry Arnold, Olakunle Fawole
1hr 42mins
Biodun Stephen
Yvonne Jegede Fawole
2018
“Sometimes your heart needs more time to accept what your mind already knows. When the forest is bare, the trees are so sad and the butterflies have broken wings. I am falling, I’m falling apart…. with a bro-o-ken heart”.
No o! I have not sporadically decided to start the reviews with poetry (but dare I say, I think I’d have more original content than that). The above were the lyrics to the soundtrack of this movie. I honestly thought as an industry we were way past this but apparently not.
Breaking Rules is the story of an uptight young woman, Vivian (Enado Odigie), who meets and falls for Martins (Deyemi Okanlawon) after he relentlessly pursues her. After she falls for him, it turns out that he had placed a bet on her with his friends and had only really been with her in an attempt to lay her. Honestly, really? I thought the nollywood of 2000-2008 already did enough of this storyline to satiate us for the next 20 years, so how are we here again?
The truth is that all the signs of what to expect in this movie were there from the beginning. From the Italicized Arial looking font that was used in the opening credits to the beginning of the movie with that old nollywood signature scene of a car entering a building, I should have known what to expect. Hence, after 5 minutes when the audio started to fade in and out or after 10 minutes when they decided that they really didn’t feel like lighting the scene appropriately so that we could see Deyemi’s face, I should have known that this was what I was in for because all the signs were already there.
But don’t run yet because it’s not all bad. Even though the production quality went from questionable in the beginning to downright ‘smh’ as the story progressed and even though the storyline itself was not much to report about, the performances are what keep this storyline going. Our female lead Enado Odigie does well in this role. Enado is slowly becoming an obsession. I’ve only seen her in this movie and Cooked Up Love (both movies of arguable quality) and both movies where she plays a similar role, but in each she brings a presence with her that makes her almost unforgettable. We’re excited to see her future works and hopefully in a movie that’s more ‘involved’ and ‘with purpose’. She and the rest of the cast, from Deyemi to Seun and Yvonne, are really what make this movie watchable from start to finish.
There’s more that one can bring up about this movie and it’s storyline (like how Martins’ relentless chasing in the beginning parts of the movie was supposed to be classed as endearing and determination but in reality, it might as well have been stalking), but we won’t. Instead, we will say that Breaking Rules plays like overly-simplified good intentions without evidence of effort.