Indak: Movie Review - Reel Advice Movie Reviews

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Indak: Movie Review

It's been a long time since we found ourselves extremely disappointed from a film. "Indak" showed all the elements we hated so much about Filipino films from ten years ago.
The leader of the dance group Indak Pinas Vin (Sam Concepcion) and island girl Jen (Nadine Lustre) get to know each other when he invites her to to join Indak Pinas in a competition after Jen's dance video goes viral.
Where do we even start? Besides its big production values, "Indak" is a total and utter failure in every other aspect as a film. The choreography was great but stifled by choppy, inconsistent, and lackluster camera work. The soundtrack was nothing to praise about as it never got us into a groove and it was too techno-heavy for our taste. Actual songs used in the film were acceptable but not great. Critically, the narrative itself was a mess. The biggest issue we found was that it was trying too hard to be dramatic but actually lacked any substance. Nadine Lustre's monologues in particular were really rough and unnecessary. The film also had various side plots that were never fully developed or explored. If we could sum it up, even with its long run time, at almost two hours, the film still felt like it was rushing things a lot. There's also a point in the film were a sponsored product was "forcibly integrated" into the story. Why are we still seeing this on film in 2019? The final nail in the coffin would be the chemistry between Nadine Lustre and Sam Concepcion. While there dance numbers together were great, anything outside of that had us cringing. Sam Concepcion in particular just had a bad performance overall. "Indak", unfortunately, has nothing good to offer. Even for free, we're hard-pressed to recommend watching it.
Rating: .5 reels

Why you should watch it:
- production values were surprisingly big

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- outside their dance performances, Sam Concepcion and Nadine Lustre had little chemistry between each other
- the narrative wants to be dramatic and deep but failing altogether

No comments:

Post Top Ad