MUHLACH. Reignant ring of cinematic truth.
That it all comes together—up to the movie’s final section—is a testament to the strength and perceptiveness of the direction (Lamasan) and writing (Lamasan and Enrico Santos).
Strengths
Apart from its strengths as an integral and organic production, the film is also a personal triumph for its male lead, Aga Muhlach, who gives his performance everything he’s got.
More to the point, he finally goes beyond his arresting good looks and signature stellar charisma to delve into his character’s sometimes bitter and even sordid heart and soul.
In so doing, the actor sometimes “sacrifices” his heretofore idealized screen “image”—but, the risky and even courageous move is worth it, because he finally comes into his own as a maturing actor, ready to tackle even more challenging roles in films to come.
Aga’s costar, Angel Locsin, also acquits herself fairly well, but the movie really “belongs” to Aga, because he takes greater risks and brings more to his portrayal by way of experience and thespic “smarts.”
The film as a whole benefits greatly from the complex way that its direction and scripting are able to make its different and occasionally even dissonant elements come together in an even more insightfully rewarding combination and integration.
Trouble is, the sturdiness and discipline of the storytelling doesn’t survive the production’s apparent desire to make its climactic events more “exciting.”
As the story’s disparate elements are about to tellingly coalesce in time for the movie’s final fade, it takes an “action thriller” detour that pumps up its “political violence” angle but distends and distorts its other elements, thus preventing the production from ending up as a truly memorable and significant film.
Perhaps the last-minute detour did add to the movie’s appeal to some viewers and helped make it a certified hit, but its negative consequences are still, in our view, too big a price to pay for such “success.”
Appreciation
Having said that, we choose to end this appreciation by focusing on the film’s more integrally effective gambits, which not so incidentally indicate how Lamasan has progressed as a filmmaker.
To cite just one sterling proof of this, it must have taken a lot of directorial moxie to convince Aga to “betray” his very effective screen image by painfully and sometimes even shockingly revealing his character’s corroded soul.
This may have turned some of his fans off, but it raised his performance to a higher and yet deeper level, so both the actor and his director should be commended for their shared courage in looking for—and finding—the raw but reignant ring of cinematic truth.