Hanggang saan ang tapang mo

Toto Natividad's first full-on action project is an impeccably shot and technically accomplished work but the cumbersome script prevents the film from flowing with much needed brevity, resulting in a bloated and sluggish narrative. The editor could've remedied this problem by cutting down on non-essential scenes, to give the movie a more fluid and urgent pace.

The set piece before the big prison sequence, should have been entirely scrapped from the drawing board as it's not really that interesting. Instead of a boring gunfight inside a generic abandoned warehouse, they could have inserted a scene where Richard's character, Ruben could've just ambushed the boss villain on the side of a road (kind of like that sequence in the Robert De Niro starrer Ronin). That could have been much more interesting and certainly more unpredictable unlike the by the numbers shootout sequence which we end up seeing.

It seems though that Natividad was pressured by the financiers of the film to make a more orthodox and safe movie, hence the predictable plot and formulaic action sequences. The film does go all out with the blood effects (buckets of it) of which I highly approve but it looks like they went too far with it. The fake blood in the film at times, has a bright pinkish hue like lychee juice; there are instances where the blood effects (especially in the final gunfight sequence in the warehouse) look very funny and absurd; when Richard shoots one of the bad guys, a torrent of fake blood would burst from the latter's back, like someone stuck a needle into a balloon filled with water. It looks very cartoonish and totally unrealistic. To be fair, the blood effects in the other shootout scenes were very good and ideally, should be the standard in blood effects in R rated hard action movies. One other thing to mention: the stock music is inappropriate and unfit for the scene being depicted; in the beginning of the movie, when Ruben and his group are on the road and heading towards their target, the theme from the Tim Burton Batman films is playing in the background, which got me thinking "Where's the Batmobile? Are they going to the Bat Cave? Is Alfred preparing a sumptuous dinner?"

Corny jokes aside, the star of the film, Richard Gomez, did exert enough effort into his portrayal, but is simply not suited for the role. To put it bluntly, he isn't just convincing in an action role; the way he delivers his lines for example is sort of timid. Even when he is mouthing off the foul tagalog expletive "putang ina mo", it sounds like it's coming from a geeky, pimply adolescent; there's no real threat of danger or menace in the words. Compare this to how FPJ spoke in that climactic scene in Batas Sa Aking Kamay or Robin Padilla's gleeful swearing in Hinukay Ko Na Ang Libingan Mo and it's quite obvious, Gomez has no goddamn chance.

But it's not just in the manner in which he delivers his lines where Gomez is found much wanting but also his body movement seem to belie a mildness that shouldn't be there. He may have a background in fencing and basketball, and is an athlete of sorts but he doesn't have the grit or the right projection. Those who succeed as action stars have a certain aura about them; let's call it the "cool factor" missing from a lot of the prospective action hero wannabes. This is why actors with leading man qualities like the late Miguel Rodriguez and others did not succeed in their bid for action stardom; they simply did not possess this "cool" factor. Sure, some of them may have mestizo good looks, a six foot plus stature, six pack abs, aquiline nose, and fair skin but those are not the variables by which an action star is made. Bruce Lee, for example, wasn't very tall, Jean Claude Van Damme is a bipolar with a nasty bump in his forehead, Sylvester Stallone has a speech impediment and Arnold Schwarzenegger is an ugly motherf-cker without his muscles. But all four look positively badass onscreen because they are in possession of the "cool factor".

But that's enough of that as we're almost at the end of my review. In almost 90 percent of its entire running time, the film is a complete drag; it's in the prison riot sequence, tacked before the credits where the movie finally picks up and has any semblance of tone and urgency. The late Roldan Aquino is very believable and persuasive in this scene and I commend the guy for his underrated thespian skills; the manner in which he entered the fray in that one scene accentuates the stark seriousness of the sequence. Now if only Natividad was able to capture the same claustrophobic ambiance and atmosphere of this sequence into the rest of his film, then it would have been an entirely different viewing experience. This shocking, disturbing and grisly finale kind of makes up for the film's imperfections and shortcomings and is the reason why I didn't give the film a mere one star (along with the blood effects of course).

To conclude, Toto Natividad's debut into the hard action genre isn't really one for the books but it's a decent effort although deeply flawed. His films after this were, more or less, competent or decent but never exceptional due to a few factors that most likely were beyond his control like the Filipino government censorship board.