Movie Review: Kabisera

Image courtesy of Facebook: Kabisera Film - MMFF 2016

Movie Review by Atty. Ferdinand Topacio

KABISERA (Silver Story Entertainment and Fire Starters Productions, 2016)

Nora Aunor, Ricky Davao, JC De Vera, Jason Abalos, Victor Neri, Ces Quesada, RJ Agustin, Perla Bautista, Ronwaldo Martin, Kiko Matos, Alex San Agustin, Menggie Cobarrubias, Karl Medina, Coleen Perez, Rhen Escano

Directed by Arturo San Agustin and Real Florido

I have been a Noranian since grade school, which is the 70’s. And I strongly believe that Ms. Nora Aunor is a national treasure whose body of work is non pareil in local cinema. So imagine my bewilderment as to why she is in a trainwreck of a movie like Kabisera.

The movie has lofty aspirations, to be sure. It is supposed to be a domestic drama which deals with a mother’s strength of character in keeping her family together after the death of the patriarch, and coetaneously a film that will incite rage against extrajudicial killings and serve as an indictment of the country’s flawed justice system. But the operative phrase here is “supposed to be” since, on all counts, the movie is an abject failure.

La Aunor plays Mercedes de Dios (Mercy of God, get it?) opposite Ricky Davao’s Tonying, a too-good-to-be-true, always smiling barangay captain who is available to his constituents 24/7 and does not take a peso from public officials for political favors. A typical middle class family in a small town, they have several children of various ages and stages of schooling. The first act of the movie painstakingly – and excruciatingly slowly – illustrates how the married couple are bringing up their children upon strict middle class values, which emphasize the importance of education, honesty, good manners and respect for the family and the elders.

For all his saintliness, someone wants Tonying dead. The first attempt – a grenade hurled at his car – results in nothing more than a few scratches. The second – an out-and-out ambush with automatic weapons – leaves him with some bullet wounds, but his cheerful nature remains unaffected. Undaunted, his killers engineer a home invasion by three heavily-armed men who shoot him in the neck, this time succeeding. Why anyone wants to kill him remains unresolved until the end of the film.

The De Dios family is shocked since, while they feel that they are the victims, media soon reports that Tonying and his eldest son Andy (JC De Vera) are prime suspects in a bloody bank heist. As Andy goes into hiding and Tonying is buried, the province’s cigar-chomping Vice-Governor (Tonying’s political godfather) pledges on his grave that he will help Mercy find justice. This help takes the form of a sash-wearing Chairman of a human rights commission named Natalia (sounds familiar?) played by Ces Quesada and a human rights lawyer (Victor Neri). They investigate the crime scene weeks after the killing and belaboring the obvious, conclude that Tonying’s killing was a rub-out.

And so it goes that, in succession, Andy is persuaded to surrender; a court trial ensues wherein Andy is defended from charges of robbery with multiple homicide; and suit is filed against the policemen who killed Tonying.

But, oh, this film is supposed to have a political commentary, so the following is demonstrated, also in succession: trials in the Philippines take too long; the truth can get mired in technicalities; it is futile to sue powerful people; and it is easy to find false witnesses.

Which is all well and good, except that a 45-minute episode of Atty. Sison’s Ipaglalaban Ko does a much better job in one-third of the time. This movie, clocking in at a little less than two hours, plods under the weight of its own length. It would have been acceptable if the movie were fast-paced, but it moves at a snail’s pace, so much so that even the supposedly tense scenes come out flat.

The acting is nothing to write home about, either. Aside from Aunor, who is her usual excellent self, the rest of the young cast turn in performances that may charitably be described as “serviceable”, except for old hands Perla Bautista and Menggie Cobarrubias, of course, who are expectedly very good. Neri’s emotionless face in playing a lawyer could get him disbarred if he were a real one, while Quesada – quite the opposite – is a ham (no allusion intended on her girth). Note, however, must be made of De Vera’s reading of the emotionally tortured firstborn: his take on the complex emotions of being saddled with the responsibility of being the putative family patriarch yet unable to help much because he, too, is accused of a grave crime, very deft. Rhen Escano, as Andy’s jowabels Ella, also acted well, aside from being positively scrumptious. Yet their joint efforts are not enough to salvage this confused work. I am certain that the script tried to set up the cast for some significant ensemble acting, but regrettably, the abilities of the rest of the cast were not up to it.

Aside from these, the plot has holes big enough to allow a ten-seater dinner table to go through. Aside from the motive for Tonying’s murder remaining unexplained, informed moviegoers will wonder why a multiple murder suspect like Andy is allowed to stay at home when no bail was shown to have been granted; why a state witness is let alone to wander around town so he can be accosted by the mother of the accused; and why a defense counsel appears in court in attire which in real life will get him cited for contempt.

In sum, Kabisera is a throwback to 80’s moviemaking, with lackadaisical pacing, stilted dialogue and a lack of focus, banking instead on melodrama to win its audience over. In a festival that aims to elevate the level of local filmmaking, it sticks out like a sore thumb. It is hoped that it does not singlehandedly “extrajudically” kill the enthusiasm for the reforms started in this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival.