On the Job is one of the best Filipino films that I have ever seen, if not the best one this year.
You know that OTJ will not be an ordinary film just by the trailer. Filipino trailers rarely assure the audience of its international standard in just a couple of minutes, but OTJ did just that. Directed by veteran Erik Matti and packed with experienced actors, it is but too tempting to see action hit Philippine cinemas in the nick of time.
The casting was nothing else but a genius call to put such good actors together in OTJ. From epic stars like Joel Torre, Leo Martinez, Michael de Mesa, Rosana Roces, and William Martinez to rising ones like Empress and Gerald Anderson, it was sure that acting will not be a problem. Angel Aquino and Joey Marquez are the best support to the awesome performance of lead actor Piolo Pascual. No doubt on the expertise of director Erik Matti, to whom Philippine cinema owes a standing ovation for putting the genre back again. Effects were high caliber, with one scene building up the next; not mentioning the cool intro. Im not an IT expert, but Im guessing that the HD camera did so much to improve the quality of this film.
I'm sure that a lot of you would prefer to see Hollywood flicks with too familiar scenes than risk it with OTJ. But let me tell you that watching this film will be one of the smartest things you can do for the Filipino film industry. We need more films like this if we want to raise the bar higher, if we want to make a statement that we have a place in the international screen.
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| image from imageshack |
On the Job made that statement for us, along with the underrated films that many of us never saw. But more that the film itself, In the end, On the Job forces us to realize something that we often neglect or fail to see: the ugly truth, that we live in a society where a hope is a partner of helplessness, where corruption lurks just beneath low bridges, and where death is just around the corner.
MY TAKE: 5 out of 5 Stars!
