This movie is a waste of my time.
Senior citizens who were watching along with me - it was a 320pm showing - left after 40 minutes. A few stayed on. I had to watch it in its entirety so I can definitively know if it sucks right to the end.
Surprise! It did.
Let's not be too negative.
The movie was saved by the actors:
Angelica Panganiban is the most beautiful and best gay-acting woman in the country.
Cherie Gil-Kean Cipriano-Edgar Allan Guzman's scenes are the ones which made the most sense.
Specifically, Cherie Gil and Kean Cipriano's performance were the most memorable.
More specifically, Kean Cirpriano, I heart U.
Buboy Garovillo, Dominic Rocco, Rocco Nacino, Glaiza de Castro, the guy who played the cynic Vietnamese refugee, Lou Veloso and all of the other actors made the movie watchable.
Plus, who knew Boobay is handsome as a dude?
If not for all of them, I would have left the theater or slept.
It was actually thirty minutes in when I realized the movie was a comedy.
It was a comedy?
The humor, if there was any, was not threaded in the story. It was just sprinkled on the surface.
The stories of the characters themselves seemed pasted on this tableau. As if there were a list of topics and life quotes the movie's creators wanted to say and they simply inserted it anywhere it fit the plot - at times even forcing it just so a character will have a reason to say "poetic" life quotes. Alas, the entire effort seemed done mainly for effect, not substance.
Proof: The unfinished game which Angelica's character began at the start of the movie and which drove the individual plots of the characters was left unfinished and unresolved - it was merely used as a superficial tool so the characters will have something to do.
The motivations of the characters for joining the game similarly didn't make sense.
A character joined the game even if the reward for it - 3 nights with Angelica's character's providing negotiable pleasure and P5,000 - is something he isn't interested in "Nabobosohan ko naman yan e." he says.
Yet this same character had the enthusiasm to rob a rural bank and even kill its guard.
I'm all for irrationality but the irrational still has to make sense - if not logically at least it should be humanly reasonable enough for me to think anyone could do the same thing given the circumstances.
I also understand if characters act on a whim. But these were just too fancy for their own good - simply put, the characters weren't grounded.
What's with the colorful texts floating on screen? Highlighting / emphasizing the dialogue? You need colorful texts to do that? The dialogues on their own aren't enough?
Wait a minute. There were no dialogues. Most of the characters were spewing monologues with others present.
Also, this is an independent film right? Then why are the movie's themes and lessons being spelled out for our benefit?
Not even the pseudo-poetic dialogue gave the movie depth.
Buboy garovillo's character: "Ang mga bata nakakalimutan na ang mga tradisyon."
Another character: "Ang costume ang nkakapagbigay ng kapangyarihan sa tao."
"The lesser you know a person, the easier (to) fall (for him/her)."
"Hindi tanda ng katatagan ng isang tao ang kawalan ng paniniwala" (or something like that)
"If you want this night to be fun, you don't have to pretend to be kool."
This movie is pretending to be a fun film by acting kool. But all it does is flash its text-on-screen graphics, its cheesy humor, cliched dialogues and moral lessons as if its target market are 13 to 16 year olds.
Isn't this an independent (San Miguel & Red Horse beer-sponosred) film that is free from the opinions of producers (who think they know what is best for the mainstream audience)? Why is it trying hard to be a mainstream movie?
The least this movie could have done is follow the dictates of its heart. But it seems its own heart is beating along with the sensibilities of the mainstream market.
I didn't see this movie as uncompromising, it was just cartoony. As if it was a concept pitched to local mainstream film productions and disapproved.
As an independent movie, I disapprove of it too.
The movie is like watching casual sex between a male virgin and a female prostitute. One is acting like he has done this before and the other is acting as if this is her first time. The result: both of them spew out lines to convince the other of his/her experience / non-experience; one pretends to be an expert at something and the other tries to be an expert of nothing. Ultimately, both leave with their desires - built up by their excitement and expectations - un-consummated. The viewer leaves the theater the same way - wondering, head-scratching & asking what went wrong and why s/he spent all that money for nothing.
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