Starring: Jake Macpagal, Althea Vega, John Arcilla
Former soldier and silk factory worker Oscar Rodriguez (Macpagal) decides to leave his farm in the remote Benguet Province in The Philippines with his family, looking for a better life in Manila. Eventually, Oscar gets a job driving an armoured vehicle with his more experienced colleague and mentor, Ong (Arcilla), whilst Oscar's wife, Mai (Vega) has to work as a stripper. Times are hard and eventually Oscar is forced to work outside the law.
An intriguing crime drama set against the cityscape of Manila and Quezon City, Metro Manila has also been put forward for the British entry into the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars (whilst the film is set in the Philippines most of the crew and production companies involved are from the UK) and whilst it would have to face some fairly lacklustre competition to get the award, Metro Manila is still a well-handled film. The early scenes of the Rodriguez family reaching Manila has a great "stranger in a strange land" quality as vehicles, pedestrians and vendors whizz by in a dizzying buzz of noise. Whilst this immersion into a foreign culture cold be equally daunting for a non-Filipino audience the script from director Sean Ellis and his collaborator Frank E. Flowers provides a window into this world and is able to make the story understandable to an audience unfamiliar with this world (not just in international terms, but the world Oscar works in has a distinctive culture and approach all its own).
For all that the film sets itself against a backdrop of the gritty world of the Metro Manila region from the crime-riddled inner-cities to the impoverished slums, Ellis's use of stylisation gives off some rather mixed results. The opening scenes in the hills of Benguet Province are truly wondrous, but the ambient score that is used at various points of the film, can get a little tiresome and heavy-handed. Meanwhile, there are strong performances, especially from John Arcilla as Oscar's rather shady mentor-figure, Ong and the film does enough to maintain attention, even if it never quite hits the emotional notes to their fullest potential.
Next time, Justin Timberlake ventures to Costa Rica in hopes of getting back his money from gambling mogul Ben Affleck, only to end up working for Affleck in a world of danger and violence in Runner, Runner.
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