‘Topakk’ REVIEW: The cost and boundaries of war
‘Topakk’ REVIEW: The cost and boundaries of war
Arjo Atayde as Miguel Vergara | Still taken from the film’s official trailer on YouTube
The first death in Richard Somes’ (We Will Not Die Tonight, Yanggaw) actioner Topakk happens the exact second after the last of the opening credits, when a soldier receives a bullet in the cranium. This is a prime example of the energy that the film buzzes with from head to toe, yearning for horrible things to happen to the human body, sometimes musing on how it sucks that people die because of the machinations of a bloodthirsty society before proceeding to stab some poor lackey in the chest with a knife.
It is a valid approach that, if done right, could please genre enthusiasts — a paper-thin story be damned. However, Topakk does not exactly do right by the ideal of the story it tells. Its end result feels more like the product of two-dimensional execution rather than single-minded simplicity.
Former Special Forces member Miguel Vergara (Arjo Atayde, BuyBust) spends his days picking up the pieces after a mission goes awry leaves his squad dead, lounging around his crime-ridden town as his memories and his failures haunt vividly haunt him. He manages to receive a job opportunity as a nighttime security guard in a local steel mill, hoping for a sense of relative quiet.
On that first night of the job however, siblings Weng (Julia Montes, Five Breakups and a Romance) and Bogs (Kokoy de Santos, And the Breadwinner Is…) find themselves on the run from a cartel-funded police squad on a cleanup operation, and in their desperation, asks for shelter and protection from Vergara. When both the squad and Vergara inevitably cross paths, the latter must face his demons to once again become the trained and pained dispatcher he once was; only this time, he won’t fail in protecting those that come to him.
Julia Montes and Kokoy de Santos as siblings Weng and Bogs Diwata | Still taken from the film’s official trailer on YouTube
That initial premise that Somes and fellow screenwriter Will Fredo initially sets up for the film could take potential avenues for thematic exploration, such as the post-discharge treatment of those who have served in the military and how they cope with post-traumatic stress in a callous society; basically a sort-of riff on Ted Kotcheff’s first entry in the Rambo film series, First Blood in a local context.
With the more high-octane, action-oriented approach it takes later on though, it feels a bit more reminiscent of the two sequels that said movie followed. In its own right, Topakk’s plot construction, with its underground drug syndicates, political cover ups, and double-crosses, feels little more than set-dressing to set up the stakes of the singular bloody night it follows on a scene-by-scene basis. This method does switch things up neatly, even if the pace does slow in between the fighting.
Similarly, the character writing isn’t something to write home about, though the motivations of the main trio, as well as those of anti-villain police squad supervisor Romero (Sid Lucero, The Kingdom) are solid enough to build on a somewhat concrete emotional core; where the concept of war begins or ends, and the cost that it brings to those caught in the middle. Due to the emphasis on the main attraction, it doesn’t really get cooked to its full potential, and attempts at melodrama and earnestness do come off as ineffective, but I suppose there’s charm in that attempt, as muddled as it could be.
That aforementioned main attraction here, of course, is the action, and as advertised, things do get quite bloody. Not only do we get loads of bullet-induced squibs and the sight of knives hitting flesh, but a wide array of weapons and objects become purveyors of death (watch out for a particularly interesting use of a flashlight in fisticuffing). What kneecaps the bloodshed is the main weakness of the film: its visual direction in its action.
While graceful long takes that capture the intricacy of fight choreography are especially well-deserving of their praise in efficiency, the method of quick cutting isn’t exactly a death knell either. If done right, the chaotic rhythm could create a vivid sensory momentum that further intensifies one’s engagement in a scene or embody the film’s writing.
On paper, the way Topakk uses its quick cutting makes sense to represent Vergara’s damaged psyche in a world that propagates violence, but the fine execution does not work. There’s a lack of visual coverage to ground the individual aspects of the action and its setting, and thus a decent chunk of the wince-inducing bodily violence becomes muted, which is a given when you couldn’t take a gander at what just occurred.
This does get somewhat rectified by the final act — mostly involving a tense fight on its own — but after more than an hour of untrained kineticism, it isn’t quite enough to pull its momentum back up to its initial promise. Past the fights, the visual palette sometimes takes upon loud hues (the colloquially-termed Mexican filter is in play, especially in the first quarter) and grimy colors, both approaches inconsistent in how it benefits the bedlam.
Arjo Atayde as Miguel Vergara | Still taken from the film’s official trailer on YouTube
The performances, though, do deserve some merit in embodying a relatively paper-thin script, riding the line between heightened exaggeration and emotional pathos. Atayde’s haunted, steely stoicism is an adequate anchor to hold the film on; Lucero becomes an effective mirror to him, switching between mild-mannered family breadwinner to beleaguered squad leader; and Montes and De Santos work well as the grimy narrative’s emotional core (the former even becomes the source of the more violent kills from the second half on).
There is a level of appreciation one can give Topakk for its lack of pretensions as a pure meathead action flick without (mostly) the pitfalls of writerly burdens, and there are plenty of fist-pumping viscera to be found, but the film’s lack of grasp on its chaos hurts it more often than not. Gorehounds could still find value in this movie’s wide array of brutality, even if it doesn’t offset its numerous flaws in the writing and visual department. Still, if you like heads being blown up, you could do worse.
‘Topakk’ is currently showing in select cinemas in R-16 and R-18 certifications as part of the 2024 Metro Manila Film Festival until January 7, 2025.
