Erik Matti’s BuyBust is almost great. As
it is, it’s a solid actioner, especially for those of us who favor the gritty,
down-and-dirty style usually relegated to the direct-to-video realm. Especially
rough around the edges and chaotic, and full of weird-as-hell flourishes, it’s
mean and violent and bleak as hell—be prepared for beheadings and morally
questionable dirty deeds American movies shy away from. Matti and company offer
a non-stop buffet of tension and potential disaster for the stars, all wrapped
in an intriguing commentary on the current state of Philippines society and the
draconian drug war under Duterte.
BuyBust falls into a similar category
with films like The Raid and Dredd. The
story follows an elite police tactical unit fronted by Nani Manigan (Anne
Curtis), who’s previous team was slaughtered thanks to a departmental leak, and
Rico Yatco (MMA fighter Brandon Vera), the team hard-ass. Based on potentially
compromised intel, they venture into a labyrinthine, drug-lord-controlled Manila
slum after notorious kingpin Biggie Chen. Things don’t go their way and before
long, they have to fight their way out through vicious goons and angry
residents. It’s a contained narrative, both physically and time wise, unfolding
over the course of a single night in a single place.
Matti and cinematographer Neil Bion shoot a great deal in
close up. When the cops weave their way through the tight, improvised corridors
of the shanty town, breathlessly searching for their quarry, their fellows, and
a way out, this works well. The pressing walls, the close framing, the
closing-in walls of the slum, create a claustrophobic sensation that ratchets
up the tension. It offers a great setting to unleash frantic, anarchic bursts
of action.
But while heavy on the grim, dark atmosphere, and with no
discernable lack of hyperactivity, the staging of said action admittedly often
leaves much to be desired. Too many of the fight scenes wind up hacked to bits,
edited to the brink of incoherence. And it’s not because the people involved
don’t know what they’re doing—their skill is apparent, especially Vera, though
Curtis and the others can more than handle themselves. But instead of letting
them do their thing, the action too often winds up a mixed jumble. After the continual
increase of pressure, they don’t quite offer the cathartic release they promise.
A few of the action beats do deliver badass highs, including one bonkers
single-shot long-take—because every action movie needs one—where the camera
soars through the tightly packed slum, that borders on spectacular. They’re not
bad, and far from the most egregious offenses I’ve encountered, but for the
most part, they never quite live up to the obvious potential they contain. Watching
them, it’s difficult not to dwell on what could have been.
For all the grit and grime, BuyBust is
also a deeply strange film, full of off-kilter, unexpected embellishments, some
of which are just head-scratchingly odd. There’s a key villain who wears
leopard-print pants and another who lounges in a bathrobe and flip flops. We
get a typical dark, droning, intense-sounding action-movie score, but it also
contains quirky music choices that shouldn’t work but do. For instance, a
reverb-drenched, pseudo-surf track that plays during a tense, climactic faceoff.
It inches to the brink of cartoon silliness, but still delivers the goods. The
film is full of similar peculiarities.
BuyBust’s larger message—about corruption
on all sides, about the brutal tactics the government uses, and the futility of
it all—often gets heavy-handed. The point is so woven into the plot that the
overt moralizing is also entirely unnecessary. Showing how the cops and
criminals share a symbiotic relationship and wreak havoc on the downtrodden
populace—it’s like watching a war between two invasive, colonizing forces while
the locals pay the heaviest price—than drives home that objective in a much
more effective way.
BuyBust offers action fans a solid, raw
genre adventure. Messy and blunt, cynical and bleak, Erik Matti’s film checks
off most of the items on our wish list. There’s promise and intrigue that it
never fully delivers on, but if you’re looking for a blast of gonzo international
action with a mean streak, you can do much worse. [Grade: B]
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