There may be much to admire in the early goings of Mike Dagñalan's Layang Bilanggo, but somewhere along the way the film loses it, irretrievably, and falls into the trap of indiscriminate inclusiveness. The first 10
or so minutes are a study in storytelling restraint and concision, an
opening sequence that redounds to great directorial promise. First, we
are given to witness an assassin’s pinpoint precision as he executes a
hit. The film then cuts to a jail office where a journalist and the
chief warden discuss rumors of prisoner-assassins. The warden hems and
haws, clearly concealing the truth. Subsequently, we get the assassin's
vantage, his double life in prison. In a few precise and penetrating
scenes that reflect and lay bare the urgency of what it dramatizes, the
film sets up an absorbing premise and introduces the disturbing reality
of the prisoner-for-hire.
Prisoner-for-hire.
That criminal mutation born out of extreme state impunity and
corruption, on the payroll and protection of penitentiaries that are
supposed to reform him. In Mike Dagñalan’s sophomore film, the focus
falls on one such assassin named Paul, a man who is caught on the horns
of a dilemma. He wants to turn his life around, but he is helpless. For
him, there is no exit: middle-aged and all, he must keep on killing to
remain useful to his sponsors, to whom the diminishment of his abilities
might spell expendability. Death. His is a cheapened life whose fate is
not his to decide.
There
are two parallel strands that interweave to tell this man’s story. One
strand traces his apparent past as an assassin who gets instructions
from a warden named Adamos and a shadowy godfather. Even in the confines
of such irregular circumstances, there are still other irregularities:
power struggles among penitentiary officials, and machinations for his
criminal services. Which is where the film starts to lose it. These
sequences comprise some of the subplots that unnecessarily complicate
the film, where a little narrative restraint would have been to the
point.
The
other strand of Paul’s story is his search for his daughter and his
admission into Anawim, an institution for the aged. Here he is a curious
presence. While the real denizens of Anawim grapple with dementia and
second childhoods, Paul turns out fine portraits. We soon realize why he
is here: why he noticeably has a close rapport with the home's art
teacher. She is his abandoned daughter. He has found her. There is no
outright reunion, but that doesn’t stop the film from approximating it.
Suffice it to say: she soon calls him father.
Such
is the suspect dramatic roundedness of Layang Bilanggo. Overplotted and fulsome, it is crammed
full with all the melodramatic elements beloved to Filipino tastes. Listen to
its twist-a-minute delights: The sad, elderly stories in Anawim. The
alliance of a cop and a criminal. The formidable foe in a woman
assassin. A father and daughter’s de facto, if momentary, reunion. The
high-body-count finale: What more can a casual filmgoer want?
Quick
eventfulness seems to be the filmmakers' overriding credo and Layang
Bilanggo's ultimate undoing. The film, it turns out, credits four
scriptwriters. Throw in a script consultant in the person of Bing Lao,
who must have wielded little veto power, and you have the makings of an
over-determined and overwritten story. Where a more direct expose on a
disturbing criminal reality would have sufficed in making a powerful and
unforgettable and relevant statement, Dagñalan stubbornly elects to
tell a story chockful of popular and sensational action and drama.
Layang Bilanggo may have romped off with the top prizes at the recent
Cinema One Film Festival but it remains the work of a callow filmmaker.
This is not yet Kubrador or Kinatay or Bakal Boys. This is glorified
soap opera.
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