The “Love Prison” movies (or episodes) finally came to an end in a part where all the ‘conflicts’ see resolution and every mystery is unravelled. Most important of all for me, Kola and Bimpe get to be the couple they ought to have been for a long time, and it was quite pleasing to see her stand up for her husband in court.
That said, the ‘big secret’ between Grandma and Kola reveals a basic loophole in the original plot: it isn’t possible that the first time they met was when she came to plead Bimpe’s case. How could Kola and Bimpe have gotten married and he wouldn’t have met any of her family members? Now, it turns out they’d even met before he became a corps member and raped Bimpe, when he was an undergraduate. It just doesn’t add up and I think this is because “Love Prison” (as some other gospel movies) does not determine what it wants to be from the outset – in genre (love or crime) and form (a franchise, a limited series or a seasonal film) – and this usually affects the plotting of Nigerian Christian movies.
Another key event worthy of note is how the Pastor more actively just comes on the scene and everything falls in place. I’m not saying it’s not realistic but that does two things: one, it shows that every other ‘Christian’ in this movie is spiritually immature and incapable of hearing from God themselves, which shows they don’t really experience any growth or development throughout the movie. Two, it amounts to the movie leaving plot holes as pseudo-clues for the audience (particularly in the four sequels), but at the end of the day, the movie itself fills them up and all we do is watch it ‘do its thing’.
It wouldn’t be holistic not to spare a thought for the plot that drove the last three parts of “Love Prison” – the murder of Okanlawon. A string of arbitrarily arranged events culminates in him still being alive in bad mental shape, and returned to his mom perfectly sane; how did all that happen? Not a lot of credibility is offered in the way of answers to that.
It was good to watch the Behind the Scenes clips, which shows that a lot of work was put into the production of “Love Prison”. I believe that a review of this limited series by the producers would result in great improvements in subsequent productions.
The link to the movie is https://youtu.be/vM4eY94060o
Till the next article, stay blessed!
Credits
Love Prison 5 (March 26, 2023)
54 minutes
GACEM Films
Cast
Seun Adejumobi as Kola
Olatunde Omowunmi as Bimpe
Toyin Huvenu as Grandma
Ayo Asiribo as John; Adedeji Adekusibe as Pastor
Crew
Writers
Oluleke Ajagbe and Adeniyi Famewo
Cinematographers
Kehinde Aroke (Eklips) and Paul Faleye
Editor
Kehinde Aroke (Eklips)
Director
Adeniyi Famewo
Witness Gospel Movie Reviews 