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Mario Bautista, has been with the entertainment industry for more than 4 decades. He writes regular columns for People's Journal and Malaya.

Mar 20, 2012

The Witness Movie Review: Gwen Zamora Delivers A Solid Performance In The Title Role

GWEN ZAMORA’s suspense-thriller made in Indonesia, “The Witness”, was screened for the press at Resorts World and the director, Muhammad Yussuf, and her co-stars attended the affair. Gwen is very effective in her role as Angel, the eldest daughter of a British dad and Pinay mom who witnesses her parents, her younger sister (Kimberly Ryder), and all their househelps being murdered in cold blood by a mysterious assassin with a shotgun who barges into their house in Jakarta.

Gwen also gets shot but she survives. She keeps having a recurrent dream about a young man (Agung Saga) who commits suicide. At first, one can’t figure out how this dream is connected to the massacre of Gwen’s family but, eventually, like the pieces of a puzzle and with the help of her sister’s ghost who appears to her, Gwen herself gets to solve the mystery of the killing of her loved ones.

The first part of the movie is very slow paced so you have to be patient as the director takes his sweet time in establishing the main narrative that turns out to be complications resulting from a deadly love triangle. The climax where Gwen finally faces the killer who chases her and she fights back is certainly well staged. It will no doubt elicit screams from viewers who love getting a good scare, particularly the scenes where the killer (Pierre Gruno) acts like a zombie who refuses to just die and just keeps on rising again.

Gwen delivers a solid performance as the much addled and much harassed heroine. She must have shed buckets of tears in many of her scenes. She gets great support from Pierre Gruno as the murderer (his motive will be a big surprise for the viewers) and Agung Saga as the tortured young man in her dreams. Technical credits are superior, particularly the quality of the cinematography that is much better than most local films.

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