“Lumayo Ka Nga Sa Akin” tries to be funny by mocking the very set-up of the common pinoy film tropes and genres it satirizes.
Sprawling through three episodes—each one a parody of pinoy film genres: the first for action, the second, horror, and the last, drama—this adaptation of the popular Bob Ong book with the same title, is actually a brilliant pursuit, but it struggles to deliver the monumental feat it seemingly promises to achieve. Much of this failure comes in the wake of uneven attention and commitment paid individually for the three parts, with the last one coming across as a strong take for the genre it tries to make fun about.
The first part chronicles the revenge of Diego (Benjie Paras) against the goons who killed everyone in his wedding, including his wife to be. This episode is marked by a persistent attempt to offer a comic commentary of every familiar pinoy action film scenario it depicts. This effort mostly delivers, but without a focused script, the result ends up half-baked.
The second one is populated by a strong pair of leads—Maricel Soriano and Herbert Bautista—as parents to a family that got stuck in a haunted house. The strength of this episode primarily comes from the earnest commitment of the actors, to their characters, with Soriano and Bautista’s comic timing and performances covering up for the deficiency in their respective roles.
Cristine Reyes’ episode is the last, and also the most sensible one. There is no question it benefits immensely from the extremely familiar teleserye trope it tries to emulate, its take a hilarious depiction of its stereotypical heroine, and the long streak of suffering and misadventures toward her eventual rise from poverty. There is a palpable level of commitment—both from its director, Chris Martinez, and from the actors—given for this particular episode. It effectively digs on the absurdity of its set-up, and the actors playing their teleserye-ish roles are seemingly in full reverence to their roles. The performances are hardly looking forced, and the characters exist in an exact milleau that appropriately enforces the intent of the exposition.
As a whole, “Lumayo Ka Nga Sa Akin” feels insufficient, contrary to what it might be capable of delivering. This isn’t actually a film that is hard to relate with, and it has a generous amount of ridiculous sentiments that most of us, as moviegoers, have.
It is a screaming portrait of the local cinema, as a whole, and it is amusingly funny and commendable at the same time, having able to create an idea that both clearly defies conventions, while also attempting to ridicule its source material. The latter is evidently successful with the last episode; it is hard to say the same when looking at all the film’s segments as one.
RATING: 2.5/4
New Rating System:
4 – Excellent
3 – Good
2 – Tolerable
1 – Terrible
