Written and directed by Ron Morales (who’s born and raised in the U.S. and speaks very little Tagalog), it paints a very sad picture of our country, where kidnapping, child prostitution, perversion and corruption are shown to be so rampant. Touches of poverty porn are displayed in the dumpsite scenes and the brothel where they only have child sex workers. Manila is portrayed as dirty, degenerate, filthy.
No wonder foreign viewers loved it as it must be all honestly quite shocking for them. Even the characters are all bad. No shades of gray at all. No one is pure and innocent. The congressman is a pedophile. His wife is an adulteress. The driver you thought is blameless is not so. Even the two little girls who were kidnapped played hooky in school and shoplifted a dress in a department store. This downtrodden third-world country is really an evil nest of vipers that’s so messed up.
The story is told indie style from the point of view of Marlon (Arnold Reyes), the driver of Cong. Chango (Menggie Cobarrubias) for whom he acts as pimp for child prostitutes. When the congressman’s daughter is kidnapped, it’s Marlon’s daughter who is mistakenly taken by the kidnapper (Leon Miguel), who turns out to have a big axe to grind against the congressman.
Marlon then has to deal with the congressman, the cops and the kidnapper himself, trying to hide the truth as much as possible. But then? What is the truth? There are revelations in the ending, even involving illegal trafficking of human organs, where things turn out to be not what they seem. This gives a shocking twist to the story but, as a whole, it’s not very well put together.
There are many questions that are left unanswered. We won’t go into details anymore. Marred by poor character development and bad dialogue, you have to see the movie for yourself and pass judgment on whether you’d believe everything it’s saying.
The performances are, in all fairness to the actors, quite good, from Arnold (who’s outwardly very religious but harbors a deep dark secret) and the depraved Menggie to the kidnapper and the cop (Dido de la Paz.) You somehow feel they deserve a better written material.
