13 Bom di Jakarta - An Indonesian Film with Some High Quality Action Sadly Downgraded by Poor Acting of Majority of the Cast

With so many publicity about this Indonesian movie in the past few weeks, I was obviously intrigued to see if it lived up to the hype. It was released yesterday in all cinema chains with the studio near my home as one of them, so it was convenient for me and my wife to go. All right then, I'll just get right on it.

Brief Story Line

When Jakarta was rocked by a terror attack in the middle of the day by a group led by the mysterious Arok (Rio Dewanto - Foxtrot Six etc), the Indonesian intelligence agency (ICTA) was in disarray as they were caught off guard. Arok later sent video threatening to blow 13 bombs they have planted in Jakarta. The ICTA head Damaskus (Rukman Rosadi - Srimulat: Hil yang Mustahal - Babak Pertama etc) instructed his team leader Karin (Putri Ayudya - Mudik etc) to investigate immediately, although she was heavily doubted by the tactical team leader Emil (Ganindra Bimo - Kamu Tidak Sendiri etc). 

Meanwhile two founders of a bitcoin trading company Oscar (Chicco Kurniawan - Penyalin Cahaya etc) & William (Arditho Pramono - Nanti Kita Cerita tentang Hari Ini etc) were celebrating their huge success together with William's fiancee Agnes (Lutesha - The Big 4 etc). Little did they know that they would somehow be involved in the biggest threat to their lives.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

This movie started off quite brightly with some action sequence that were well crafted and made me quite excited. However once the movie slide over to the ICTA head quarter, my wife and I were truly surprised with the poor acting of the people there. It was frankly quite shocking especially after such promising start to the movie and the director's name Angga Dwimas Sasongko who was famous for directing plenty of critically and commercially successful films like Cahaya dari Timur: Beta Maluku, Mencuri Raden Saleh, Ben & Jody and many others.

Anyway I tried to keep open mind with the film and hope it would get better. And when there was another action scene, I thought it was even better than the earlier one as it was grander, louder and with good special effects too. Sadly though after that the movie focused again on ICTA and the two young entrepreneurs which was overly detailed and took too long. It might not have been a problem if their acting were at least decent enough, but unfortunately it made the wait for the next action to be rather painful. Even my wife thought that the terrorist group were better than those ICTA personnels.

The movie had a quite large ensemble cast who had lots of experience and few of them had been nominated for awards in the past. So it was rather astonishing to see how some were struggling in their characterization. Perhaps they were more fitting in dramatic roles instead of in action movie. In addition to the names I mentioned above, there were also other cast such as Niken Anjani (Sleep Call etc) as one of ICTA member Gita, Muhammad Khan (Kucumbu Tubuh Indahku etc) as one of the terrorist Waluyo and a brief cameo of well known actor. My wife and I also felt that they were more convincing than most.

The duration of the film was very long of 144 minutes which might have been OK if it was filled with the action. During the closing credits, I noticed there were a lot of stunts person which was understandable for this kind of movie. There was no mid or post end credit scene here. It had an ending that was OK but a bit confusing with the appearance of that cameo since it made the movie seemed like it did not have complete closure. But it was not something of importance. Guess it was just some kind of easter egg related to Rio Dewanto (the best one in the movie to our opinion). 

So if you are looking for an Indonesian action movie with wonderfully crafted fights and kind of superb special effects supported by decent sound effect, then you would not be disappointed with this. It had a so so story added with a plot twist that could have been smelled miles away. I am usually not very particular of other stuff as long as the actions were amazing and awesome, but this time even I could not disregard the poor acting of most of the cast and the overly long and detail story (especially too much on ICTA team). Which is too bad especially for a movie that I had high hopes for from quality director and the big names.

Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars