The Last Reel - Review

If you know me at all, you'll know that I never did any type of reviews. I was going to a couple of times, but I kept putting it off until I didn't want to do it anymore. But here goes my first movie review, "The Last Reel" directed by Ms. Kulikar Sotho. *spoilers alert*

Cinematography:

I love the cinematography. It was very well done. Compared to most other Khmer movies, this has got to be one of the best out there. The shots were great, lighting was great, coloring was great as well. It gave some of an old Khmer feel to it, which is what I'm guessing the director intended.

Concept & Storyline:

The concept of the movie is partly brilliant. I love how they make a new spin out of the Khmer Rouge scar theme. But I also hate how they're using another Khmer Rouge theme. It is pathetically redundant. I know, I know it's a part of our history and all that, but can we just not make every movie about Khmer Rouge? Honestly, how long are we going to milk that tragedy? Almost every Khmer film that has gathered international attention is about Khmer Rouge. For God's sake, even Angelina Jolie is making a movie in Cambodia about the Khmer Rouge. This is getting old. I'm not saying that we should forget about the past because we shouldn't. But it also isn't very healthy to grip onto the past for dear life and play the victims. Learn from the tragedy in the past, and move on. At least make some good movies for the international stage that isn't about Khmer Rouge. I don't want to be known as the girl from the Khmer Rouge country. We're more than that, dammit.

Another thing I love is how honest certain scenes were. It was a daring move to portray the policeman as being corrupted and violent. In a country like this, not many people would portray the police this way even if we all know many of them are. I love how well they portray the gangs in the movie, because, again, that's how they are in real life. And I absolutely love that they even added PTSD to the mix, because as we know, many Khmer Rouge survivors came out with mild to severe PTSD. Too bad the honesty and authenticity only applied for the first half of the movie. 

There were no plot twists. That's what frustrated me. Yeah, people have told me that there were plot twists. Minor plot twists. I was referring to the climatic plot twist that keeps on the edge of your seat. The mother turned out to be the actress. Big surprise there. *yawn* The director-not-so-director man, Sokha or whatever his name was, turned out to not be Sokha, but instead, he was the evil brother, Vichea. (Excuse me if I get the names wrong.) Uh what? Yeah, that was a plot twist, but it was the kind of plot twist that left you go, "WTF was that?"  And that was probably the biggest plot twist in the entire movie, unfortunately. It was so anti-climatic. If I were to compare it, I would say it's like making love and you reach orgasm, but then you find out that your partner has gone limp. It left me unsatisfied. 

The other plot twist was the mother going back to shooting the movie and the evil brother went into monkhood. And that was stupid. I would like to believe that I know a thing or two about the film industry, fiction writing and all that. There is a huge difference between surprise and suspense. Suspense is what grips on, leaving you unable to take your eyes off of the screen/page. Suspense is what makes you want to find out more about what's going to happen. Surprise is just, well, unexpected events. Surprise is good, but it doesn't leave the audience wanting more. That's what this movie did. It threw in a lot of surprises, but no suspense.

Another thing I didn't get was the point of the movie. I have been taught by script writers that a good drama/movie/story is simply a journey from point A to point B. But then you throw in problems and challenges, and viola! Maybe I'm just too dumb to see, but what was protagonist's destination in the movie? What did she want? I didn't even find out till almost the end of the movie that she wanted to marry the gangster boyfriend for love. I didn't even know she loved him. I thought she was too damaged to love anyone. Yes, the movie was unpredictable, but only because I didn't know what to predict.

Oh, and one please stop playing the same scenes in the so-called "Long Way Home" (that title in Khmer is so awkward) movie over and over and over again. Every time they made reference to that movie, they kept showing the same 4-5 scenes with the same music over and over again. At least show us some new scenes or not show us at all. I don't want to watch it 3-4 times. Please.

Plot holes. Plot holes. And more plot holes. One that is on the top of my head right now is when Sophorn (the protagonist) talked to her brother on the balcony. He said she was selfish. She said it was easy for him to say because it wasn't too late for him. It was too late for her. I expected that to be cleared up by the end of the movie, but nope. Why was it too late for her? Was it because she wasn't a virgin? Did she kill someone? 

And then they also brought up the fact that her mother was made worse by her father. It was said that the father abused the mother. How? We only saw him drunk once. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that he's an alcoholic. They didn't say he was an alcoholic. He yelled at her three times. But why is he like that? Didn't he love her very much before? What changed? Did she cheat? No? Did he find out she loved someone else before? But he already did before marrying her. But then what? My God. Bare in mind that these are just two examples of about a dozen or so more plot holes.

Characters Development: 

It's bullcrap. It's the kind of character development that you see in fairy tales or children's book. Bad guy does bad. Then they turn good at the end of the movie. Everyone in the movie was like that. All of them were bad. Well, most of the main characters. Sophorn was selfish and rebellious. Her boyfriend was a gangster who threatened to shoot everyone. Her father was an asshole, corrupted officer. The movie-playing guy, Vichea, was a lying, jealous prick. 

Sophorn saw posters of her mom's movie and she suddenly changed her mind and wanted to help finish the movie. For what? I don't know. Her boyfriend wanted to help her finish the movie, too. For what? For the money? Yeah, it seemed so, but then he defended her in front of his friends when he was an asshole to her at the beginning of the movie. You can't possibly tell me that people just change for no reason like that. There's got to be a moment or something that made him change. What is it?

And the most ridiculous of all? Her father. He was a KR soldier. He supposedly abused her mother. He got her boyfriend beaten up. He threw her out of the house. But almost at the end of the movie, he broke down and cried when Sophorn took him to the grave of the KR victims. She only said, "Daddy, follow me. Tell me the truth." There went the waterworks. Come on. He was just yelling at her 5 minutes ago. Be realistic. 

Dialogue:

Some of the dialogue was so awkward, I wanted to cry. It was cringe-worthy. Some of the actors were so unnatural that it was like listening to Siri in Khmer. Yeah, many of them were good, but the not-so-good ones gave me goosebumps.

Some of the sentences were obviously translated from English. I speak awkward English-structured Khmer, so I can detect sentences like that. They sound weird in Khmer, but they make perfect sense in English. That irritates me. Can't we have normal Khmer day-to-day dialogue instead of English-translated scripts once in a while? 

I tried to keep this review short, but there's just so much to get off my chest. I feel like CinemaSins right now. Despite my complaints, I still think it's one of the best Khmer movies out there. I know I probably will get some hate about this because I am not "supporting Khmer movies". I'm just saying as it is. I know we're just getting back up, and our movie industry can't be compared with that of other countries, but we certainly can't pat ourselves on the back and say this is as good as it'll get.

Would I pay to watch it, hindsight 20/20? No. Would I watch it again if it was free? No. Would I recommend it? Yes, but only if you don't have anything super important to do. But don't keep your hopes up. 

I would rate it a 6.

Love, Catherine
XOXO