REVIEW | HONOR THY FATHER (2015)

Director Erik Matti has always been open about his abhorrence and deep intolerance for Christian fundamentalists. In fact, the On the Job director has always been known to publicly raise his social media fists without reservations against religious folks, sometimes with warnings to his Twitter followers: “Be wary of people who try hard to be nicely righteous in the name of God because often they are the most dishonest. #hypocrites.”

The antagonistic feelings of the highly celebrated Filipino director against organized Christian religions is perhaps the inspiration for his latest crime drama Honor Thy Father, which had its world premiere at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival’s Contemporary World Cinema section.

Matti and Michiko Yamamoto’s story, with the latter penning the screenplay, tells the story of Edgar (John Lloyd Cruz), a skeptic husband to his religiously fanatical wife, Kaye (Meryll Soriano), and who reluctantly joins her in the gatherings of the tight-knit religious group, along with their daughter who’s piously named Angel (Krystal Brimner).

Edgar only condones his wife’s die-hard devotion to the Church because Kaye’s hypocrisy is the family’s source of income. Inside the gaudy Church building, Kaye feverishly praises Yeshua, but outside of worship services, she’s a scammer; peddling her father’s get-rich-quick scheme to the greedy members of the Church.

Then comes the explosion: when Kaye’s father disappears and the people’s money are all gone, the churchgoers' true colors are revealed—they instantly transform into violent and vengeful savages, baring their hypocritical fangs and becoming real threats to Edgar’s family.

With their lives in danger, Edgar strips off all niceties and lashes out at Kaye, at Kaye’s God, at the Church of Yeshua, at Bishop Tony (Tirso Cruz III), and ultimately plotting a heist with his non-religious criminal brood to save his family.

Honor Thy Father is a social commentary and an abrasive attack against fundamentalists disguised as a crime-drama and thriller. Indeed, this is a gutsy move on Matti’s part, to translate his mere personal opinions onto the big screen, considering he’s from a predominantly Christian country.

His fictional Church of Yeshua is really the central character here, suggesting that Christian Church leaders/founders are crime syndicates, milking money out of their white-collared members and that the followers are the worst kind of folks, portrayed as an entirely different kind of species whose greed passes through generations—down to the kids who clamor for fried chicken at a birthday party.

But regardless of one’s worldview and opinions on religious people, Matti’s Honor Thy Father falls flat. The characters are thinly developed, and his Church of Yeshua and its flock of white-wearing believers, led by Bishop Tony, are nothing but caricatures; a middling and superficial portrait of a brainwashed charismatic group. Too bad, the fictional group and its leader lack nuance and substance that would have achieved his aim of a disturbing and eerie cult.

The heist is flimsy, lacking in suspense and thrill. It’s done hastily and without much thought and build-up. Because the film is a visual diatribe of Matti’s personal assumptions, fueled by a need to discredit Christian fundamentalists, the film simply forgot about intelligent narrative. Without a character to sympathize with, who shall you root for? Not Edgar and his wife, because they’re both scammers, to begin with. Not Bishop Tony, because he’s a poorly written clown. Not the kid, because you just know that Angel will be safe (plus, she’s a violent kid, to begin with), and not the congregation, because they are a parody of what could have been a more creative and more imaginative depiction of a fictional religion.

Scene after scene of pretty frames and a gorgeous color palette, interesting production design, and a very competent John Lloyd Cruz, but everything feels hollow up until its very graphic ending and a conclusion that would make you feel nothing.

Honor Thy Father is undercooked. A technically glossy but paper-thin personal commentary that boils down to this: in the land of greed, power, and corruption, the non-religious are less evil, according to the gospel of Erik Matti. In the spectrum of evil, the Churchgoers are the worst, in the movie’s opinion. The Church of Yeshua and Edgar’s criminally inclined family are both crooked, but at least the latter is not a group of hypocrites, the film says.

If only Honor Thy Father is rich and profound, and most of all, entertaining, you may easily forgive the movie’s seemingly prejudiced and generalized view on Christendom. Unfortunately, it’s not.

 

Catch “Honor Thy Father” at the 2015 Metro Manila Film Festival in December.

Photos credit: TwitchFilm.com