Tupang Ligaw opens with Abel (Matteo Guidecelli) arriving at the outskirts of Barrio Paraiso, a little provincial town run with an iron fist by the sinister crime lord El Diablo (Paolo Contis). Abel is in town to find his troubled older brother, hoping to bring him home and fulfill a promise made at his father's deathbed. He gets some help from the widow Melissa (Ara Mina) and her young son, who offer him a place to hide out while wages a violent war in hostile territory against the crime lord and his many well armed goons.
The very first action scene introduces a problem that will plague the movie for the rest of its very short runtime. Abel runs into some goons raping a girl in the outskirts of town. Being the hero that he is, Abel intervenes and takes on the goons. The fight that ensues has the armed goons trying to hit Abel with the butts of their rifles, rather than just shooting him. Because while these are brutal, violent criminals, they apparently aren't going to murder a man that's openly attacking them.
Abel, on the other hand, while being the ostensible good guy of the piece, never hesitates in ending a man's life. While his enemies are prone to holding him at gunpoint and giving him a few moments to save himself, Abel and his allies will repeatedly sneak up behind goons and slit their throats. It never really feels like Abel is in any danger. While flashbacks establish El Diablo and his goons as unrepentant murderers, when confronted with the protagonist they are either completely incompetent or weirdly prone to mercy. This extends to his new allies and the other people helping him out. El Diablo, in spite of a history of violence, doesn't seem to want to kill people anymore.
The film isn't any better outside of the action sequences. The movie relies heavily on flashbacks to fill in all the details of the narrative. Except it never really establishes why Abel doesn't go for help, why the suffering townspeople don't reach out to the outside to get aid against someone openly breaking the law. And again, Abel is just outright murdering people, the hero of this story putting himself above the law as he acts as judge, jury and executioner for an entire community of people. A late twist adds another layer of nonsense to the proceedings, as it suddenly establishes that more people were aware of what was going on in town.
The film does deserve some credit for trying things. There are a couple of sequences that move fairly well, considering the limitations. On the whole, though, the film's technical package leaves much to be desired. The film's biggest shortcoming is the sound mix, which never seems to find the right volume for dialogue. Matteo Guidecelli doesn't really cut it as the tough guy protagonist. His natural accent really does make him seem more effete than what the role requires. But to be fair to the actor, this film doesn't do its cast any favors. The dialogue is stilted at best, and prone to long, awkward bouts of exposition.
Tupang Ligaw barely makes it to seventy minutes in total, including credits. And while brevity can be a virtue, the shortness here seems to come from an inability to really tell a story. Because there’s a lot that could be done here with these elements. But at almost every turn, the film chooses to ignore logic and reality in favor of a strange milieu that has the good guys being more murderous than the bad guys. It all just seems overly ridiculous, and not in a fun way.
My Rating:
