By taking on organized religion, ‘Honor Thy Father’ is necessary

In a country where the non-belief in a supernatural creator is almost unthinkable, "Honor Thy Father" is very brave indeed. If director Erik Matti were a politician, this movie would be career suicide...although there is a running conspiracy online that the disqualification controversy concerning the film is caused by people who weren't enthusiastic about the portrayal of The Church of Yeshua.

That name bears repeating: The Church of Yeshua. Matti and writer Michiko Yamamoto were really going for incendiary. However, if you're expecting a resolution or even a depressing story of vengeance against the holiest of fathers...temper your expectations and settle for something that's surprisingly a little traditional.

Before going any further, it is important to say that making "Honor Thy Father" is necessary. Diversifying anything is necessary and more than that, standing up against a domineering institution and its Holy Entity is long overdue in the Philippines. The portrayal of an organized religion as cultish and scammy needs to be done. Too long has its existence been unquestioned and too rarely do we see characters boldly stating: "Tigilan mo na 'yang Diyos mo. Hindi tayo matutulungan niyan."

But as Matti himself said, the audience must always demand better movies and better stories. Without the context that "Honor Thy Father" came out during a time when mainstream movies seem limited to love teams and romance, how does the movie hold up?

The first half is an acting vehicle for John Lloyd Cruz. He erases all traces of his rom-com roles and onscreen, you simply see him as Egay.

Egay is a man of few words, quietly watching as his wife Kaye (Meryll Soriano) hustles to make sure that the family never wants for anything. He seems detached from everything, save for his daughter, Angel (Krystal Brimner). In the opening sequence, Egay displays curt affection as he covers for his daughter's troubling incident at school and as the story progresses, it becomes unclear who Egay is protecting. His daughter from a mother's scolding? A mother from worrying about the violent morality of a child? His own sense of morality that goes against what his wife has gotten the family into?

Matti and Yamamoto obviously take these themes seriously, and so does Cruz, Soriano, Tirso Cruz III, and William Martinez (whose character is unfortunately unexplored in the film). The look on Cruz's face when the teacher reprimands Angel (saying "Hindi ka dapat nakikipag-away, kababae mong tao") is the reason why awards for acting exist.

For his part, Matti also brings his A-game directing the first act. The camera is all about the money and hysterics in sequences involving The Church of Yeshua, exposing the hypocrisy by portraying these gatherings with unflinching accuracy. The audience sees the events unfold from Egay's perspective and it is easy to share the rage building inside him as money-worship strips nearly everyone in this film of any sense of humanity.

By the time Egay loses his cool after taking all manners of beating, the audience is primed and ready for the second half where perhaps retribution lies.

Sadly, in the Philippines and in this work of fiction, justice (even vigilante justice) doesn't exist.

In the second half, Egay's background is revealed, but there's little meat in the bones. There are too many shots of tunneling through to get to a goal and Egay's earlier anger-fueled declarations seem to have been eroded by a more basic desire to protect his family. Because family is family and gone are the complexities in the first half.

Reframed as a story of a family just trying to get by and weeding out stray details that did not advance the plot or improve our understanding of the characters, "Honor Thy Father" passes with above average marks. More coherence and sharper focus could've made the movie great, but as it is, "Honor Thy Father" is merely good.

Sadly, that's high praise for most mainstream films, most of which hardly contain any ambition and passion for the art of making movies. "Honor Thy Father" at least tried. — BM, GMA News

"Honor Thy Father" is now showing.