I recently watched Mariel Rodriguez's youtube vlog by accident (my girlfriend is a devoted viewer of her channel) in which she says "do not make decisions when you're angry or happy but when you are calm and composed" or something along these lines. Which gets one thinking, was Robin Padilla angry, happy or high on his wife's p-ssy when he made the decision to make this particular film?
The film itself had the potential to bring back Padilla to the field of hard action after his string of romcom movies and soap operas. But as it turns out, the movie is an unintended comedy of sorts due to the lead star's lack of self awareness or he simply believed that acting like a schmuck is good enough. Like Tommy Wiseau, Padilla has a huge ego the size of Jupiter and like Wiseau's film The Room, Padilla's movie is a certified disaster.
There are long stretches in the film where one virtually can't see anything, as in nothing, non, none. Maybe the reason for this is that the cinematographer is Stevie Wonder. In addition, Padilla cannot summon enough gravitas in his portrayal. To evoke an atmosphere of seriousness, Padilla resorts to staring into empty space as if trying to conjure something out of thin air or maybe he's just bored out of his mind for making such a sh-tty movie. He's probably thinking "When will this filming end? I can't wait to get Mariel back into bed and f-ck our brains out again". In his early films, he used to have a very expressive face, conveying various emotions. Now though in this movie, he is limited to only two, an angry and tough, constipated look and a normal "serious" mug.
What eventually makes the film into an unintentional parody is the director's amateurish skill level. The director doesn't know how to approach a shot from a certain angle; for example, the scene in which Padilla's and Rodriguez's characters make meaningful eye contact is incorrectly shot from a wide angle when close ups should have sufficed to better capture the sentiments expressed. The gun battle in the woods is another sequence which the director bungles; this set piece resembles a scene straight out of a no budget direct to video monster movie (you know the ones with titles like Shark Attack or Tarantulas on the Beach). Padilla's one action sequence here looked like it came from Hotshots Part Deux. What should've been a badass moment for Padilla, what would've made audiences utter the word "cool" transpires into a silly farce. Padilla's aping of Chow Yuen Fat becomes a spoof instead of a homage. But the sequence which becomes the film's piece de resistance of blunders is the scene in which Padilla's character lay bloodied on the floor of a cockpit after he is riddled with bullets; the camera lingers far too long on Padilla's crotch area, which makes one question the cameraman's sexual orientation.
The fundamental problem with the movie is its basic lack of focus. It jumps from one subplot to the next or from one timeline to another time period that there isn't much to build on in terms of momentum or character development. The story could've been more effective if the filmmakers made up their minds on the correct tone for the film; instead of trying to weave several stories together, the plot should've focused on one main story such as for example, the clan members' career as bank robbers.
To conclude, the movie doesn't hold up because of the scatterbrained plot. From a storytelling and filmmaking perspective, the film is a straight up debacle.
