Did The Job

I RAVED about OTJ ("On The Job") after I saw it on the big screen.  It was a big moment for me, as there were a lot of personal “Firsts” - things I never thought I would live to experience while watching a Tagalog movie.

I actually CARED about (some of) the characters.  This has NEVER happened before.  Halfway in, I looked over at my companion and felt it:  "They must be doing something right, because honestly, right now I want these guys to escape..."

I thought about the movie days after I saw it.  In itself, this is not strictly a “first,” since I think about how AWFUL every Tagalog movie I ever saw was for days on end as a matter of amusement.  OTJ was different.  I was thinking about the story.  I was reliving some of the characters in my head.  Joel Torre and that potentially annoying arrogant kid Gerald Anderson GOT to me.  Joey Marquez became my hero.

I did not want it to end.  I hated to admit it to myself, but as the story seemed to approach the close, I was screaming in my head "No, not yet!" - I wanted to see more of Acosta and Tatang!  I wanted this to be the pilot of six-episode mini-series.

THE SOUND.  Oh my God.  I said it in a comment I posted elsewhere:  "Magugunaw na ang mundo!" - I say this because the unthinkable has happened:  This Tagalog movie had sound that made sense.  The dialog was in sync (and when not in sync, well hidden by edits).  The sound properly conveyed space.  The foley was just right - not overdone.  The entire audio experience was magically just right.

And the soundtrack?  Gimme that OST!  Seriously.  Most Tagalog films I had the displeasure of watching (read: giving a chance) had to have some cheesy music sung by one of the actors worked into the movie.  OTJ had scoring that simply did the job.

THAT BEING SAID, OTJ won't score more than 7 or 10.  I Rave within a context - and that context is in comparison to all the Tagalog Films that tried before.  No, OTJ is NOT the best movie of the year.  And PLEASE do not put it up there with "City of God" or "The Departed" just because of some similarities we insist on seeing.

 

Get excited, but slow down.  We have a good thing here, but let's recognize where we are:  we are pointed in the right direction.  We have careful technical consideration and a good story in there.  We have powerful inspired performances that can even be described as "haunting."  Those are all big deals!

However, a lot of the elements that make me sigh at Tagalog films still found their way into OTJ.  So now off to the "room for improvement" section - the Rants in this Rave.

The Title.  How long was the brainstorm on this one?  It seemed like a wasted opportunity to title this film with some better thought-out combination of letters and words that could have made a great statement.  "Inside Out" comes to mind, or even "Borrowed Lives."  As trite as those suggestions may sound, my point is that a better title is expected out of a roomful of geniuses creatively considering collectively.

The Story POV's.  I was totally immersed in Tatang's POV.  I could bounce over to Acosta's and feel his world as well.  Coronel's...?  Seemed like a waste of momentum every time.  Some of us feel that Coronel’s side of the story may have been better served in shadow.  As important as all his conflicts seemed, his POV could not deliver.  Wait, I blame...

Classically Pathetic Performances.  Oh my, Piolo, when are you ever going to bring something to the table besides that one expression and your rock-hard nipples?  You know how Ben Stiller had "Magnum?"  Piolo has "Mopey."  That's all he brings to the table.  Is he hopeless, or did the director fail to reach inside him to pull out something even passable?

And then you have the cliché that was Leo Martinez’s delivery of what was supposed to be the most complex character of them all.  One does not become that cold without the “calculating” part of the package - that gleam of superior intelligence that we only see when it is too late.  For someone that height-challenged to reach the rank of General and have that amount of influence, I was expecting to meet a mix of inexplicable charm and massive but subtle power.  What we got was a cartoon character.

Let's throw into this item THE WOMEN in the Film.  Each character had the opportunity to be integral to highlight character conflicts and moral dilemmas...but they did not.  The women in this film were used as background noise.  Coronel's wife made Piolo look like an Oscar nominee.  Some chick with no breasts who needed a career jumpstart made an appearance in the middle to show some nipplage.  Tatang’s hot supermodel wife seemed grossly undirected.  Acosta’s wife gave great background noise, and not much else.  Wait, I blame...

The writing, or the editing.  Yes, the story was very moving, but the supporting characters were massively undeveloped.  It's almost as if the writers focused so much on Tatang and Daniel that they left the others - especially the women - to fend for themselves.  I could not care about any of the women - couldn't love them, couldn't appreciate where they were coming from, couldn't see much reason to keep them in the edit at all.  Except we needed...

Gratuitous love scenes.  You are not a Tagalog movie without this, so I was expecting a beach ball to come in at the end as well so the cast could break out into an ensemble number.

 

Seriously, if I see a scene that does not move the story along, it has to go to the cutting room floor, doesn’t it?  It’s a tough call, but aren’t tough calls and broken celebrity egos part of the big picture?

Maybe Direk wanted to do another parallelism montage where everyone is giving it to someone all at once, but the attempt was not properly setup for me.  For love scenes to work, I have to feel the emotion.  Even if it is just revenge-booty, I have to feel it build and blow up!  Remember the notebook?  When they smash into each other to kiss, we all went "Yes!  Finally, f**king YES!!!"

When the OTJ men grabbed their chicks, we just cringed and said "Meh, whatever, fast forward."  Wait, I can blame...

Erik Matti?  I have built a prejudice on his work over the years, so I must apologize for my own perceptions.  To me, an Erik Matti film is like an Ice Skating routine.  You have a checklist of technical stuff to pull off for the judges, and you try to string the tricks together and hopefully tell a story.

Erik Matti strikes me as a guy who watches what other directors do and sets out to prove he can do what they do.  All the tricks are in there, somehow, somewhere.

There's the fluid one-shot - which stumbles when the camera is struck along the way.  I am of the opinion that a well thought out fluid one-shot montage is supposed to lead to a climactic event, important element, revelation, or hero shot.  Something has to put all those elements together after that long take - whether it's all the Avengers converging into a circle, or something exploding.  In the case of the OTJ prison tour, it ended with Daniel tossing some clothes onto his bunk bed.

 

Watch OTJ again and see what other devices Matti uses like he is checking them off a list.  The hospital shootout, the foot chase into the trains.  Like I said, an Ice Skating routine.

Did I say skating?  I also mean SHAKING.  I am not a fan of camera-shaking for style's sake.  When Daniel makes his first kill, it is one out of anger.  That scene was crucial, and I needed to see Daniel barrel through it.  Unfortunately, the director shook the camera all throughout the scene and said to the poor foley artists, "Make sense of this please!"

I expected the grit of the opening scene to color the rest of the movie.  If you are going to show me someone’s head splitting open after a bullet rips through it, I want you to show me how a rusty sharp object breaks skin and creates a faucet under someone’s ribs.

The Super Secret Law of Cinematic Honesty.  If it’s ugly, make us want to look away, even though we can’t.  If it has beauty, make us want to stare.

If we were being honest here, we are saying this:  Killing is ugly, and it ain’t easy, but these guys develop the necessary calluses.  It takes more than a shaky camera and a blur with lots of sound effects to convey that nastiness, and how one can administer that kind of evil and then stash the experience in some corner of their being where their conscience will hopefully not find it for a long time.

There was potentially some great ugly-beauty there, but Direk just chaos-edited his way through it.

talk about a missed opportunity.

I won’t even get into the plot-holes.  Oh, hell, here’s a few.

When you are with a potential murder victim – and you are a cop – you do not:  a) leave him alone while “you get the car” if the car cannot drive into that little alley all the way to his door; and b) ignore two mean strapping jacket-wearing shady characters walking in the alley towards the person you are supposed to protect.

 

When a murder target is in his hospital room and you post cops to protect him, those cops do not leave their post – no, not even when a gunman makes a ruckus and runs out of the hospital.  That is what is called a distraction, and only amateurs empty the fort.

Ah, the old clueless cops cliche...

OTJ had massive substance, so when gratuitous devices and plot shortcuts are forced into it, I get distracted and find myself saying "pssh!"  Was it also style - or producer-meddling - that influenced the choice of scenes and events as the film unfolded its ending?  I leave that up in the air, as I personally felt that most of the film was setting up for a kill-shot that just grazed the target at the end.  A kill, but not quite the headshot.

ALL THAT BEING SAID, I must end with a RAVE.  This last "First" is an invincible testament to how I feel about OTJ.

I have NEVER willingly seen a Tagalog movie TWICE.  If I represent the Filipino snob that is holding back the local Film Industry with my cynicism and lack of support, OTJ has scored a major victory.

I say all this not as a respectable Film Critic.  I have no clout or MowellFund background here.  I am hardly a student of the industry.  I am nobody.  What I am, is the guy you are selling tickets to.  I’m the one who walks in there and wants to be entertained by a story and moved by five-dimensional characters.

I bought your ticket twice.

Bravo, OTJ!  You are magnificent in your own right.  A blue-chip in your Junior League.  Take the 7 of 10!  We can work out those three points if we stay honest, open, and passionate with the details.  What really matters now is that you have set us on the road that leads to a breakthrough!

I celebrate this Job.