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Jeric Raval stars as Dio, a rather impulsive though well-meaning policeman with a tendency to
take the law in his own hands. He and his sidekick Flavio (Dinky Doo, Jr.), a neophyte cop, try to play heroes at a bar shooting and kill a man in the crossfire. They get
suspended and their firearms and badges are confiscated. Unstoppable in their itch to arrest crime, the trigger-happy pair—still under suspension and using "reserved"
badges and guns—attempts to track down illegal money-making operators. And the action resumes.
Bala Ko, Bahala Sa 'Yo is a technical flop. Prepare to get dizzy following the close-up shots, and be ready to listen to unrehearsed dialogue. The music neither enhances nor distracts from the visuals—it simply has no power to create mood or even to be heard over all those gunshots. The story was written, it seems, for the sake of writing something, because although there is some semblance of a story, it carries no message that seems worth the money and effort pumped into the movie's production. As if that weren't enough, the story's credibility suffers even further from the injection of side remarks and gestures meant to be funny but which succeed only at annoying the viewer.
Bala ko...
offers a lot more action than acting—the unfortunate result of putting "stars" in front of movie cameras before they can even think of taking acting lessons.
Because of the abovementioned flaws, the viewer may be left with no choice but to inwardly
question the idea behind this production. Why must movies like Bala ko...
be made at all? Is it because its producers believe it is what the public wants and will therefore buy? Is this the reason, too, for inserting sex scenes where there could very well be none at all? Is
Bala Ko… with its stoogey and stupid cops a reflection of the sad state our country's police force is in? How filmmakers allowed to step into hallowed grounds
in the name of "art" and "realism"? A case in point is Bala ko's
lengthy shooting scenes done in a cemetery. While the credits thank certain government officials in the film-shooting location (somewhere in Batangas), the viewer may wonder if permission to shoot was asked at all of the people whose relatives are buried in the town's cemetery. The gun-toting actors on a long wild chase not only did their stunts on the tombs—their stray bullets also damaged not a few tombs and gravestones.
Although CINEMA rates this movie for mature viewers 18 and above, you won't miss anything by
not watching it.
(Date Reviewed: February 16, 2001)
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