Review: Side Chic Gang

This is my second movie review in two days. I’ve been trying to take a bit off time off and relax and going to the movies helps a bit.

So….I watched “Red Sparrow” and wrote a review on it. I mentioned that I was supposed to see “Molly’s Game” but AGAIN Silverbird Cinemas messed up again so I couldn’t see that movie.

(What’s the point of putting up the movie show times and not announcing that you have technical difficulties??!)

So, this time I was with a friend and she suggested we see “Side Chic Gang”, a Ghanaian movie. The three main stars of the movie are Nana Ama McBrown, Lydia Forson and Sika Osei.

So here’s the thing: I’m not big on Ghanaian movies. Throw out the whole “being patriotic” and “supporting your own people” rhetoric. The reason I don’t watch most Ghanaian movies is because 90% of these movies just aren’t that good.

And I’m sorry to say but I’m adding Side Chic Gang to the list of that 90% of bad movies.

Cheaters With A Little Bit Of “Three Stooges”

So, the premise of the movie is that three friends discover a man who they know, cheating on his wife. So they decide to tell on him. His wife however, has heard those cheating “rumors” before and needs proof to confirm what they’re saying.

To prove their case, they catch the husband in the act with their smartphones when he picks up his secret lover at a disclosed location. They present the evidence to the wife who is mortified but grateful for the confirmation of her husband’s infidelity. In turn, she decides to gift our three “heroes” with a cash reward. And that begins the story.

Have you watched the show “Cheaters”? It’s a reality show in which people ask private investigators to follow their significant other to confirm if they are indeed cheating.

That’s the general idea of what the three females do. Word goes round that they’re “experts” at catching men cheating on their significant other and soon enough, they have clients out the door requesting for their services.

The movie starts off… “awkwardly” with Nana McBrown’s character standing at the roadside, looking for a ride. Soon enough, a nice gentleman with a “nice” car comes to her aid. She whistles for her friends, who are for some reason, hiding out of sight in the bushes near the roadside.

Once they appear on the scene, the nice gentleman has second thoughts and drives off. The initial interaction with the three characters on screen is immediately reminiscent of the Three Stooges.

It sort of sets the tone for the movie that we’re about to watch a “goofy” comedy but it soon becomes something else. It’s like the movie can’t figure out if it wants to be a“goofy” comedy, or some other genre because it switches back and forth.

Here’s my friend’s take on the movie:

“I did not like the movie. The plot was all over the place. There was no continuity. There wasn’t a core message. So many holes. Why were they hiding in the bushes in the beginning sequence? Why try to get a free lift? At least Pokua (Nana Ama McBrown’s character), had a husband and they could afford to print flyers. Why did they need to swindle people? All to show us that they were hustlers?

The nosy one brought this on them because if her husband was cheating, she would want to know and she was so dismissive of his attempts at supporting her. And how did the two men know each other and decide to take them out? Pokua felt threatened but did she report the incident to her friends? Where was the security man?”

As you can see, inconsistency with the movie along with LOTS of plot holes….

Technicalities

What makes this movie fall flat is what that affects many other Ghana movies: technical stuff.

First off, editing in this movie could be better. Transitions from one scene to another is sometimes hard to understand. A scene transitioning from one day to the next is more of a quick edit cut whereas something more of a “fade to black” sequence or time-lapse of day to night to indicate that the scene has shifted to the next day, would have been better.

(The fact that I’m actually writing about the editing of the movie is a bad look)

Sound is also a problem. There are some scenes in the movie where the volume of the movie score is higher than the sound of the dialogue of the characters on the screen.

There are also a LOT of plot holes in this movie. There’s no spoilers in this review, but at the end of the movie, you will end up asking yourself “Whatever happen to [X]” or “Why did they do [Y]” when you’re going through an internal review of what you just watched.

Supporting Your Own Vs Critical Review

As I said in the beginning, I don’t tend to watch lots of Ghanaian movies. Most of the them unfortunately have the same old storylines, poor acting or just bad technical stuff and that has turned me off to many of them.

I didn’t think Side Chic Gang was a good movie. 40 GHC to watch it in a cinema did not seem worth it. This movie is what you would say is a “Straight To DVD” movie. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. As far as a cinema going experience, this movie just doesn’t seem to cut it.

So the question for the Ghana movie industry is whether they’re advancing in their story telling in movies and improving on technical abilities or are they falling short and not pushing the envelop. Most people (including me) would say the latter.

This movie just doesn’t seem worth the price of admission. Does that seem harsh? Maybe a bit. But like one of the songs that was played during the movie: “E dey pain”. (Here’s the actual song. It’s pretty good)

Sometimes you have to let people know that their content is not up to par and let them go through growing pains and improve.

Sidechic Gang wasn’t worth. This review is just stating the obvious.