May 12, 2023
Julius Sumpay (Sean de Guzman) was the son of a poor broken family. Together with his mother Lourdes (Shamaine Buencamino), Julius worked as household helpers in the mansion of the wealthy and powerful political Garcia family. He idolized the swinging lifestyle of his young boss Fonzy (Vance Larena), and would sneak using Fonzy's clothes and perfume when he flirted with rich girls at his school.
On the night of October 12, 2019, Julius drove Fonzy, his cousin Miguel (Marco Gomez) and Miguel's girlfriend Jenie Martinez (Cloe Barreto), to a party of their common friend, Kyle Espinas (Karl Aquino), at a private resort. While Julius was preoccupied with a party girl Dana Limpin (Hershie de Leon), the three other boys violently had their carnal ways with a drugged out Jenie. In the morning, Jenie was found dead in bed.
The hand of director Joel Lamangan could be seen all over the story of this film, although the script was written by Troy Espiritu. It dealt with a common theme in many of Lamangan's films -- the rich could get away with anything because of their money and influence, while the poor dealt with injustice and oppression. Lamangan's "Oras de Peligro" (2023) basically had the same frame-up plot and crooked cop (Apollo Abraham) as this one.
The title already tells us what happens to Julius -- poor driver gets framed and thrown into prison for the crime of his boss. To make sure we get the point, this story even happened two times -- one minor one quickly resolved, and the major one for which there was no quick fixes. This story happens in the present time, but Lamangan seemed to have a hangover from his last film and inserted protracted scenes of Martial Law-era torture techniques.
As Julius, Sean de Guzman played such an unlikable character, he needed to work (too) hard in those torture scenes to make the audience to sympathize with him. Lamangan reserved the melodramatic confrontations to his triumvirate of senior supporting actresses -- Shamaine Buencamino (as Julius's mother), Glydel Mercado (as Jenie's mother), Tina Paner (as Fonzy's mother) -- and wow, how they chewed these scenes up!
Disgusting and disturbing, it is never easy to watch rape scenes, and this one was no different. With three rapists going one after the other, the scene felt like it was going on and on too long, I had to hit the fast forward button to get it over with. Logic went out the door when freshly-tortured Julius was able to use a fork as a murder weapon, and then go on foot to reach the hideout of the rapists before the police cars caught up with him. 3/10.
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