Once upon a time, I recapped an insane Christian book that claimed the devil created football as a tool to destroy humanity. The article’s popularity made me turn my recaps into a weekly series named “So You Don’t Have To“, where I find batshit crazy pieces of media (books, movies, etc) and recap them for your pleasure.
Today, I’ll be recapping the 2019 Christian romantic comedy, ‘2 Weeks In Lagos.’
Contrary to what this poster says, the love story in this movie is not original, in any way.
‘2 Weeks In Lagos’ starts with Keme (Mawuli Gavor) returning from America with his friend, Charlie. They’re both investment bankers who work on Wall Street and are back to invest in Nigerian businesses.
Sure. That sounds realistic.
Charlie takes Keme to meet his family. As they’re there, about to eat Charlie’s mother’s meat pie (LMAO), Charlie’s sister, Lola (Beverly Naya), walks in. Lola is fine as hell so Keme is immediately sprung.
Keme’s attraction to Lola is clear to everyone in the room, except Lola herself. The next day, while she and her mother are in their garden trimming imaginary shrubs, her mother gives her some advice.
Lola says she’s not looking for a relationship because she wants to focus on God and her career. What follows is a series of scenes meant to let the viewers know that Keme and Lola are good people and super Christians. In one scene, Keme buys a N100 pack of plantain chips in traffic (which he doesn’t even want) and leaves the N900 change for the hawker. Lola goes to get a dress from her tailor when they see a man beating his little daughter because he believes she’s a witch and the cause of all his misfortunes in life.
Read my recap of the movie, End of the Wicked and you’ll understand why.
Lola’s tailor stops the man and takes the little girl to go live with her. The tailor is poor as hell and can’t possibly add another mouth to feed so Lola gives her money. Then there’s a scene where we see Keme and Lola reading Open Heavens Daily Devotional in their homes.
Keme comes over for dinner a few days later and Lola’s mom goes into full matchmaking mode.
Keme and Lola run into each other at a Frozen Yoghurt shop and hang out for a bit. Before they go their separate ways, he asks her out on a date, and even though she’d previously said that she only had time for work and Jesus, she agrees. Things fall apart when Keme finds out that his parents want him to marry the daughter of his father’s political running mate.
Keme respectfully tells his parents that this isn’t the 15th century and they must be mad if they think he’s going to get into an arranged marriage with some hussy they picked out. He says he’s capable of finding a beautiful Christian wife by himself and storms off.
There’s a montage of Keme and Lola going on dates and it makes me realise that the two lead actors have no chemistry whatsoever. Here’s a screenshot of them having a romantic picnic in the park but unintentionally looking like colleagues at a work retreat going through slides for a presentation.
After dating for only two weeks, Keme is like:
And Lola is like:
The fact that this happens just as they’re leaving church makes this even funnier.
Keme invites Lola to meet his parents for the first time at his father’s 60th birthday party. Unbeknown to him, his father has planned to announce the union of his son and the daughter of his political running mate at this same party. The announcement is made and Lola is heartbroken. It gets funnier when Keme’s mother calls her a whore and has security take her off the premises. Keme insists that he’s not marrying the girl they want him to so his mother takes matters into her own hands by HAVING LOLA KIDNAPPED AND TORTURED!
In some stupid way that I don’t have the energy to explain, Lola is found by Keme and it’s revealed that Keme’s parents were behind the kidnap. Keme threatens to ruin his father political ambitions by reporting them to the police and his father promptly points out that he’s a corrupt Nigerian politician who can pay his way out of anything. Lola’s mother shows up to fight Keme’s mother.
For those who don’t know, Shaffy Bello was the female vocalist in Seyi Sodimu’s 1997 hit song, ‘Love Me Jeje.’
Keme tells his mother to stop acting like a fucking Bond villain. Then he says this out of nowhere:
And that’s how the movie ends. Apologies flow around and both families come together in Lola’s hospital room to hug things out.
if it seems like nothing happened in this movie, it’s because nothing did. 80% of ‘2 Weeks In Lagos’ is comprised of filler scenes. The writing and acting are atrocious. NONE of the characters act or talk like real people. And I haven’t seen worse chemistry between two romantic leads since Fifty Shades of Grey. Then there’s the religious stuff they kept forcing into the plot. See, this movie isn’t terrible in a “so bad, it’s good” way, it’s just plain bad, which is the worst kind of bad anything can be. Save yourself (and your data) and skip this.
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