Last night I decided to see another Indonesian movie that was released during the Lebaran holiday. My wife was not keen with this one as it did not really interest her. For me though, I was intrigued to see the action sequence by the main lead actor. As it did not play in the theater nearest to our home, I had to go to another location for the 7.15 PM show while my wife wait for me in a restaurant in the mall. Well I would just get into the movie now.
Brief Story Line
Tegar Satria (Joe Taslim - The Night Comes for Us, Fast & Furious 6 etc) was a narcissistic police who had his own reality show and became more like a TV star than police. However, he also took his job seriously, especially when it involved drug trafficking done by a gang leader Coki (Yayan Ruhian - John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, Wiro Sableng Pendekar Kapak Maut Naga Geni 212 etc). In order to capture Coki, Tegar enlisted the help from a small time crook Lio (Chandra Liow - Single etc) who might have information on Coki's whereabouts.
During one of his regular mission on TV, Tegar met with a famous singer Meisa (Tatjana Saphira - Ghost Writer, I Am Hope etc) and became quite close to her. However, while he was investigating Coki, Tegar's captain Affandi (Mathias Muchus - Hangout, Jenderal Soedirman etc) assigned him to another case that involved underage girl who ran away with a seemingly unemployed & whiny young man named Jefri (Jefri Nichol - Dear Nathan, One Fine Day etc).
Through some luck and coincidence, Tegar managed to get some clues on Coki. With the unlikely help from Lio and Jefri, Tegar tried to capture Coki and close down his operation. Would he be able to do so while his relationship with Meisa getting complicated? Find them all in this quite fun action comedy movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well to be honest, when I saw the trailer to this movie, I already knew that this would be a combination of action and comedy where the comedy seemed to be cheesy and tacky. And it turned out to be right (which proved that my wife's decision for not joining me seeing this movie a good choice, cause she did not really like this type of humor when it's not well done). During the almost 2 hours movie there were quite a lot of these jokes which sometimes disturbed me as they did not seem to suit the actors playing them. No offence but Jefri Nichol a whiner was not funny to see, though Chandra Liow managed to pull off in providing fun moments a few times.
What I loved the most about this movie was definitely the fight sequence. They really looked well choreographed and it did not surprise me when I saw in the closing credits that Iko Uwais team was responsible for them. Joe Taslim still got the moves and his nonstop fight scenes in the climax were quite awesome. This time the fights were not as brutal and violent as his earlier movies like The Raid or The Night Comes for Us but still very entertaining. However the gun-fight scenes were not really satisfying, especially during the first 5-10 minutes. But most of the time the action was really the highlight of this film.
Talking about the main characters, I got to hand it to Joe for his courage to play a different type of character than his previous ones (at least the films or series that I had seen). He was quite convincing as the narcissistic police who always tried to look good on camera, and there was one moment which was quite fun to see when he used his native hometown language of Palembang with one of the villain. But his chemistry with Tatjana Saphira was not one of the best. At times there seemed to be a bit of awkwardness (not sure why, probably just my feeling). Plus that scene involving the piano felt too long for me. However, Tatjana was quite good in portraying the famous singer with her hit song "Bukan Taman Safari" which had quite a catchy tune. And I like the way the writers explained her behavior during the dinner scene with Joe.
Other than those 4 characters, there were also other supporting cast like Karina Suwandi, and minor roles played by Dayu Wijanto even Tika Panggabean. But what I liked the most was the inclusion of few former martial athletes such as David Hendrawan, Simone Julia and Peter Taslim as part of Yayan Ruhian's team who managed to perform well during the fights. The movie was directed by Ody Harahap (Kapan Kawin?, Skakmat etc). The end credit scenes also showed some of the bloopers (including the mistakes while performing the fight scenes). Oh the opening scene also showed me that this movie was a joint cooperation of several companies including CJ Entertainment which was the South Korean production company famous for producing many successful movies in various genre. This might explain a bit of South Korean feel for me. One thing that I noticed a bit disturbing was the music & sound sometimes a bit too loud and making it a bit challenging to understand what people were saying.
Overall this was a movie purely for fun. It was never meant to be a wonderful great movie receiving multiple awards. Just something that you go to cinema to enjoy, if not for the cheesy humors, at least for the cool fight scenes and probably to enjoy the nostalgia of seeing Joe Taslim in the same movie with Yayan Ruhian. At least that was my favorite moments.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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