The Tribune

Movie Review

By Stephen Hunt

Nathaniel P Lewis is a determined Bahamian film-maker. His “Politicking in Paradise” movie earned plaudits at the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival’s Grand Bahama offshoot. “Frapper Avec Amour” is his latest short.

It’s the tale of a hitwoman who discovers she has a personal connection with her latest target – a drug dealer who she used to be romantically involved with.

But this is no heavyweight drama - rather a romcom where the shotgun wedding actually comes toting a shotgun.

The tone is uneven, however, and Lewis – who also stars in the movie as well as being its writer, director and producer – plays his part too big to begin with, as if on stage rather than on film, and it’s only in the mid-section where he tones his performance down that you can focus on his character.

Alexis Hicks, playing the hitwoman Camille, does well with her role, showing both softness and the ability to blaze her way to get what she wants. Credit too to Meredith O’Connor for her brief role.

Sadly, the script doesn’t hold up – there’s a twist to the tale (which I won’t give away) that you can’t see coming because there’s no foreshadowing and so it leaves the whole story feeling implausible. There’s also some clunky dialogue, such as Camille telling her target: “Well, for starters, you were supposed to be dead 5 minutes ago.” He replies: “Well, I’m not.” She says: “Well, you will be.”

You will be dead five minutes ago? A script editor should have really flagged that for a rewrite.

Against that, however, is the fact that this is a well-produced piece of work. The sound quality is excellent – a problem for many a more amateur production – and the video quality too. The framing of the shots might be more adventurous at times, but it does the job and doesn’t get in the way of telling the story. There’s also some swift cuts-to-black used well as (sometimes quite literally) punchlines.

While there may be flaws, this is a film-maker on the rise, and if he can marry a crisper script to his next project, it will be interesting to see what he can produce.