10,000 Hours, still showing in Metro Manila, was the unparalleled surprise of the recent Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF). We were captivated from the very first scene of Joyce Bernal’s film entry starring Robin Padilla. His smile, both charming and confident, glimmers upon his wife, played by Mylene Dizon, as they walked in from the driveway fronting their provincial home.
This opening scene is one of familial serenity. What a happy family, we muse to ourselves. This mood darkens swiftly, however, when a son, sent to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water, lingers and is found held at gunpoint. Here, we witness the brutal nature of a protective patriarch/cop raising its furious head and had us cringing in shock with what our handsome charm-ridden lead has been forced to do in order to keep his family safe.
The story is loosely inspired by the events that led Sen. Panfilo Lacson to flee the country in 2011, hiding out God knows where for roughly 14 months (10,000 hours) to successfully escape the yoke of injustice. On the day before Robin’s character Alcarez was to deliver a privilege speech implicating the Office of the President in a pork barrel scandal, Robin is able to escape authorities led by Michael de Mesa as Gen. Dante Cristobal, former police officer-turned-senator. Michael like Robin is a believer in justice, and their friendship is put to the test when Michael accepts the assignment to hunt down his friend, all in the name of fairness and impartiality.
And this is where the likeness of Sen. Lacson’s story ends and the movie 10,000 Hours begins at transforming itself into fiction. The story expounds on the possible plot reminiscent of Paul Greengrass’ Bourne Identity but with far more subtle acoustics and far, far less firepower. This, we feel, is the ultimate saving factor of the true-to-life action film that dogs most of modern-day action films, still struggling to survive the plethora of teleseryes and fantaseryes that have ruled television.
Direk Joyce allows the storyline to unfold at a gentle yet deliberate pace that is easy to digest against the cool, grey backdrop of the Dutch capital of Amsterdam. The movie is without excessive gun battles, car chases and cat and mouse pursuits. And it is precisely because of this that we found 10,000 Hours to be believable. We understand why Isabel Manahan, played by Carla Humphries (of Italian-American and Filipino upbringing), takes in Robin in Amsterdam and provides him everything he needs to survive in a foreign land. Then, there’s the relationship with wily reporter Bela Padilla, who champions the senator’s story, purportedly for a scoop, but is in for a larger more personal reason.
We watch and feel for Robin’s family as they are hounded by the press with their father’s name dragged through the mudslinging. Coupled with feelings of abandonment, the family reaches a point when Mylene collapses with a nervous breakdown. It is the footage from nosy reporters aired over international television, of Mylene in the hospital that convinces Robin he has to return home, for the sake of his family, whatever the outcome of his case.
Other important cast members apart from Michael, and Carla who protects him as he accepts various menial labor jobs to keep body and spirit alive are Cholo Barretto as eldest son Benjo who bears the brunt of the family shame, Pen Medina as the former police asset whom Robin has to find as proof of his innocence and Bibeth Orteza as the bad President of the Philippines.
Of course, there are misses in the production. We can even forgive how it was that Robin’s arrival in Manila was perfectly timed with a bag of new clothes and a taxi waiting for him at the pier? And yet these questions fall by the wayside neatly unanswered, lending to the movie’s brilliant James Bond mystic.
10,000 Hours is an excellent film, well done, perfectly focused on the story it needs to tell. It won 14 awards at the MMFF including Best Picture, Best Actor for Robin, Best Director for Joyce Bernal, Best Supporting Actor for Pen Medina and Best Story and Screenplay. We, the viewers, are able to concentrate, despite the side stories and love affairs that every Filipino movie must indulge in. What truly mattered in 10,000 Hours is that corruption is present and its whistleblowers risk everything in the name of truth. Alcarez like Lacson comes out alive in the end. What we are left to wonder is, has his story made a difference? We are hopeful that it has.
(E-mail your reactions to bibsyfotos@ yahoo.com, and text us at 0917-8991835. We apologize for the mistaken attribution of the Christmas Day Tacloban goodwill tour to Cathay Pacific, when it should have been Cebu Pacific in our Monday, Jan. 13 issue of Live Feed. Sorry guys!)