‘Lobola Man’ review: The founders of South African romantic comedy on old-fashioned predictability
Director: Thabang molecule | Script: Success Ramaphakela| Cast: Lawrence Maleka (Ace), Kwanele Mthethwa (Zandile), Sandile Mahlangu (Duke), Nimrod Nkosi (Mr. Zungu), Sthandile Nkosi, (Rachel) ea | [b]Time to play: 108 minutes | Year: 2024
Marriage is linked to rituals and traditions all over the world. In South Africa, the dowry, the lobola, must be negotiated. In romantic comedy Lobola Man This fact gives rise to a children’s comedy.
Ace makes money as a ‘lobola man’. He helps the groom’s families reduce the bride price. He is such a good negotiator that he can even sell a group of (white) Afrikaners as Ubuntu supporters. He himself takes advantage of spicy situations to get things going. The womaniser has to run for his life.
With this fact, even the most unsuspecting viewer knows what is going to happen after about ten minutes: the Lobola man is going to fall in love with a girlfriend. And so it happened. One day, Ace is hired by computer programmer Duke and gets sued. He should have known better, as the programmer of his ‘buddy dating app’, an app that Ace speaks highly of. “You wouldn’t believe how much I got through your app.”
Unfortunately, little is done with this computer data. Director Moleya plays it safe. This is The wedding planner or worse, a species South African Bon Bini Festivals. This last association is mainly due to the “fake family” that Ace hires to do the job. A bunch of idiots putting on a childish town charade. It’s true that the jokes about a supposedly deaf-mute guy are among the best in the movie, but that also says something about the level.
When most of the jokes have been exhausted and other things (like the alcohol) start to flow freely, the acting of the leads becomes more serious and also better. You could also say that this is painful in a romantic comedy, which mainly tries to earn its living with jokes and pranks.
Comedian Theo Maassen (now cancelled due to loose hands) once said: “love, they should make a song about that.” Lobola Man He seems to think something similar about cinema. However, the film does not have much to say about love. The male-female image that the film gives can even be described as a bit unpleasant.
Computer programmer Duke is a small, insecure, badly coiffed man who loves hugs. The latter in particular seems to be absolutely negative for those around him. He prefers it with a nerdy colleague. He leaves the beautiful women to the real men. In other words: Zandile, the bride-to-be, quickly becomes a rival for Ace’s firm, masculine hand.
Some of the best scenes take place in the run-up to the Lobola negotiations. Zandile’s father Mr. Zungu engages in a verbal fight with Ace, who is trying to save what can be saved. At that point, the solution becomes clear to send everyone home satisfied. With 45 minutes to go, that’s enough time, to say the least.
Lobola Man It’s about the winners in life. Those who are resourceful and dare to go beyond. A truly irritating comedy would have devoted more time to the timid laggards: Duke and his colleague Rachel. Now Zandile, independent and sometimes quite feminist, is being tamed again, as should be the case in a patriarchal world.
Lobola Man can be seen in Netflix.