'Kwaliteit 2': New comedy a self-indulgent prank

'Kwaliteit 2': New comedy a self-indulgent prank

Joko Anwar, Contributor, Jakarta

Kwaliteit 2 (Quality 2) Comedy
Starring Bramatyo W., Rahadian, Mualimin, Dennis Adhiswara,
Yunita David
Directed by Dennis Adhiswara
*1/2 (out of ****)

Twenty-two-year-old Dennis Adhiswara just made his mark as the
youngest movie director in the country with his
sport/comedy/action/martial-arts Kwaliteit 2 (Quality 2).

While his feature debut could serve as an inspiring
accomplishment to countless moviemaker wannabes out there, it
instead comes as an affront to the growing enthusiasm and hope
for an established local film industry.

The fact that major movie theaters would screen such a poor
sophomoric outing should upset many who yearn for local movies
made with competence, at least technically.

Kwaliteit 2 qualifies only as an amateurish movie to be shown
at student events. Your buddies would definitely have a great
time watching their friends or themselves doing silly things in
it. But those who pay to see it in theaters are likely to find it
a painful experience.

Don't get me wrong. The movie hints that director Dennis, who
also wrote, edited, produced and acts, has some interesting,
sometimes outrageous ideas. But he would only be able to realize
them on the screen through learning about the technicalities.

It is also enlightening to know that not all aspiring
moviemakers only dream of being the next Quentin Tarantino or
Donny Boyle. Dennis seems to be firmly into parody and gross-out
comedy.

The movie begins with a scene where a little boy is playing
with a remote-controlled toy car. Three boys take the car and
destroy it. However, this particularly long sequence has almost
nothing to do with the rest of the story.

Next thing we see is a chubby college student named Santoso
taking a poop, with his other housemates restlessly lined up in
front of the bathroom.

We learn that Santoso and his buddy Sly are college juniors
who always get bullied by their seniors.

In a very contrived scene, Santoso and Sly end up having a
pillow fight with their seniors above the swimming pool. Whoever
can stay above the water wins; Santoso and Sly lose.

An old man who works as the pool cleaner tells Santoso and Sly
that the bullies win because they have mastered the martial art
of pillow fighting that he teachers.

The two losers end up being the old man's students in the
quest to win the upcoming college sports Olympiad.

We understand that director/writer Dennis wants to make a
sport/comedy movie such as Water Boy or Iron Ladies while giving
a nod to old Indonesian martial-art flicks. He even shows a clip
from an Eddy S. Jonathan movie.

However, it takes maturity to poke fun at corniness. At this
level, Dennis fails to rise above an object of ridicule.

In the next scenes, Dennis seems to be having too much fun,
and his gross-out jokes cross the line into utter tastelessness.

During one pillow fight scene, Dennis shows a man watching the
show while defecating into the river, with the excrement shown
falling down. Since Dennis is also one of the producers (the
executive producer is his father), it's understandable that he
gets away with it because he is calling the shots. But he
shouldn't have.

Fortunately, most of the main actors give decent performances
since they seem to be relaxed. Some of them are even delightful
to watch, including the actors who play Santoso and Sly.

But the story is hampered in making any progress by too many
subplots that have little to do with the main plot.

The bit about Santoso winning money in a photo competition is
only an excuse for Dennis to put on a poorly conceived, long
chase scene, involving a bread cart and two bikes used to sell
the traditional food siomay.

The movie goes on for almost two hours, definitely way too
long for something like this. Shot poorly on video, it will
deeply offend those who demand quality movies.

It seems that the movie has been shot by a pedestrian just
handed a video camera. What is missing is the sudden zoom-ins and
zoom-outs used by local old films. Well, they may as well have
used them.

Other technical departments are also irritatingly inept.

The movie must have been edited by a chain saw, or at least a
broken computer mouse. Despite the fact that there is someone
billed as a sound engineer, the quality of the audio matches that
of any home video.

Often, we cannot even hear what the characters are saying
because the music (not good either) or the background atmosphere
is too loud.

These shortcomings often sabotage potentially funny scenes
with good ideas. Good ideas are in fact what director Dennis only
has to brag about, but he can be proud of that.

His ideas are definitely better than what so-called senior
movie director Richard Buntario showed in his 5 Sehat 4 Sempurna
and Cinta 24 Karat. In fact, Kwaliteit 2 is far better than those
two so-called movies which only succeeded in torturing the
audience.

Even so, Kwaliteit 2 is far from satisfactory. The audience
deserves something better.

We understand that Dennis is only trying to make a silly
movie, but even that requires seriousness and competence.

I don't think the fact that his incompetent effort made it to
major movie theaters is Dennis' fault.

Next time, the grown-ups should know better that encouraging
young moviemakers does not mean letting them get away with
murder. In this case, the murder of quality moviemaking.