Lucky

The film follows the story of Lucky Barima Mensah, a handsome university student that has landed the date of the century with the most popular girl on social media. With not a cedi to his name, Lucky and his friend Wadaada have to try and sell a macbook to gangsters and fraudsters while avoiding a crazy taxi driver they ditched without paying. When Lucky thinks nothing else can go wrong, they do.

Lucky, Fofo Gavua

Without spoiling too much of the plot, Lucky is the story of Lucky Barima Mensah, a Twitter-famous university student who lands the date of the century with the most desired girl on social media. In need of money, he teams up with his best friend and bonafide hustler to try and sell a laptop to local gangsters. It’s a pretty simple premise and touches on themes relatable to today i.e. society’s obsession with social media, however it was quite difficult to follow.

I must admit that while watching this I had to stop and Google the synopsis to try and better understand what was going on because I kept losing the thread of the plot. I understood the basics - the protagonist was popular on social media and he had a date with another popular social media influencer - however everything after that got a little confusing. This was probably partly due to the language barrier, though they were speaking English, they went into Ghanian slang a lot. Also, the accents were understandably strong which also didn’t help.

“A pretty simple premise and touches on themes relatable to today ”

There was one accent that stood out and was hilarious to hear next to all the African accents - the one South London character who for some reason, was incredibly angry at the two main characters. I’m still confused by this character, why was he so angry at them? Why was he so angry in general? Why was he British? But I have to admit that it was one of the funnier aspects of the film, whether intentionally or not, so there’s that.

I think Lucky, at the end, tried to make the point of recognising the life you have around you, outside of your phone, and that social media isn’t everything. It’s a message I can appreciate but I feel like the overall plot didn’t really convey this message until the very last scene so its impact is somewhat questionable.

★ ★

Release Date: July 30th, 2021 (U.S.)
Directed by Fofo Gavua
Written by Fofo Gavua, Joewackle Kusi, Kumi Obuoabisa
Produced by Lawrence Adjei, Kusi Adu-Amankwah
Starring Nenesenor Abloso, Buki Akiwumi, Kabuki Akiwumi, Fred Nii Amugi, Akofa Edjeani Asiedu
Cinematography by Godfred Adjei
Distributor: Abstrakte Productions
Runtime: 80 minutes.