Monday, May 6, 2024

Vivamax: Mini-Reviews of RED FLAG, LATE BLOOMER and LADY GUARD

 May 6, 2024

RED FLAG

Director: Lakambini Morales

Writers: John Carlo Pacala, Lakambini Morales

Headwriter: John Carlo Pacala

Gina (Micaella Raz) was a sales agent in the used car business.  Red (Mon Mendoza) was the new guy on the job. Despite all the rumors about Red being a womanizer from her best friend on the job Lance (Mhack Morales), Gina still fell for Red's "irresistible" masculine charms. However one night, Gina herself witnessed Red romancing their big boss, Ms. Mara (Joana David) who promised him a promotion when he gave in to her advances. 

This is another one of those overused Vivamax tropes where the story is set in a specific workplace and the characters use sex with customers to land multiple sales and with the boss to get themselves a promotion. This plot was centered on the used car sales business, just as "Showroom" (2022) was for the condominium sales business. Mon Mendoza was terribly miscast as Red because there was nothing charming about him and how he portrayed this character. 2/10.


LATE BLOOMER

Director: Rodante Y. Pajemna, Jr.

Headwriter: JC Pacala

Writer: Nigel Santos

Therese (Robb Guinto) and Maddie (Erika Balagtas) were best friends and partners in their advertising firm. Maddie thought her OFW boyfriend Arthur (Mikhael Padual) was rusty and lacked practice in bed. Meanwhile, Robb was diagnosed with MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome), and decided to reopen her sex life with guys like Luigi (Jasper Torres), Aries (Ardy Raymundo) and her ex Jimmy (Mark Coplador), but was still not finding enough satisfaction. 

Therese was such a disappointing role for Robb Guinto as it did not fit her classy image at all. It would have been better if she and Erika Balagtas traded places because Maddie's strong character was better fit for Guinto's magnetic screen presence.  The writing was nothing to crow about, but at least there was effort exerted on research as it dealt with a disease entity called MDS which I did not know about, so this made me look it up on Google learn more about it. 2/10.


LADY GUARD

Director: Bobby Bonifacio, Jr.

Head Writer: John Carlo Pacala

Writers: Steve Sanchez, Matt Teves

Estelle (Angela Morena) was the strict lady guard of a parcel delivery service warehouse. Estelle oriented the new guard Meryl (Irish Tan) the tricks of her trade for earning extra bucks under the table. She blackmailed her plant manager Janus (Anthony Dabao) for his illegal activities with cash and sex.  At night, when their boss (Arrian Labios) was away, Janus allowed outsiders to conduct a Colored Dice gambling game for the employees, from which Estelle also took a cut.

In the tradition of noble occupations besmirched by Vivamax, this time it's the turn of lady security guards.  A very distracting thing about this particular film were those deliberately glaring blobs of light which appear whenever the front of the guard uniforms were in full view, seemingly to hide incriminating names on them. To be consistent, Bonifacio would also use these bright lights to "enhance" the drab warehouse backgrounds of his sex scenes. 3/10.



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