Writer: Wahiduzzaman

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Watch this if you liked: "Over Her Dead Body" and all Razak's films.

"Cinta U-Turn", the latest art piece from our renowned director Prof Madya A. Razak Mohaideen makes its way for another round of despair at the cinemas. One wonders why he never seems to improvise after more than 20 films under his belt. Since the review of his previous romantic comedy "Duyung" earlier this year, he shows NOTHING AND NOTHING AT ALL that we can look forward to in "Cinta U-Turn". True to the cliches, this film offers no new perspective to his work and is just another cheap comedy trademark that's well carved on his forehead.

Admittedly, the movie sees a mixture of big names in the local scene, which, in a way, can be a good move to pull in the audiences. Names like Awie, Fasha Sandha, Mazlan Pet-Pet, Datuk Jalaludin Hassan and veteran Abu Bakar Omar are strong enough to draw the masses to watch this movie. But can the line-up alone add quality to a film? In this case, the answer is DEFINITELY, NO!

It is unquestionable that front men Awie and Mazlan Pet-Pet played their role well, while salvaging the entirely crappy plot. The blokes should be thanked for their natural and amusing acting, which is a sigh of relief from the tension of the ridiculous plot. Fasha Sandha shouldn't be labelled as good actress yet with such poor performance in the movie. She was unnatural and expressionless with mediocre acting; which made her character meaningless. In other words, any other actress in Malaysia can play her role with more vigour. If that's not pathetic enough, she even fails to utilise her gorgeous looks and curves in the dancing clip in the movie. She's nothing but appalling, completely stiff and emotionless - as if she's still an amateur or a first timer. It is more torturous to see the performance of our established thespians, Datuk Jalaludin Hassan and Abu Bakar Omar, which can only be described as 'overacting'. They're great actors but they've tarnished their acting profile with such mess via this movie. Perhaps the storyline itself requires them to portray their characters that way or perhaps it's just a botched mission to appear hilarious, but in the end they only manage to look silly doing it.

The imported Director of Photography (DoP), K Shiva from India, does not particularly mesmerise us by the shots in the movie. It's just ordinary, which even a local DoP can perform just as well. Worse still, the sound effects were the worst of all. No elaboration needed here, as it's too painful to describe. Apart from its major kaput, the music score for this movie is quite appealing. It's quite pleasant to hear our rocker icon Awie serenading his husky tone to a creative dangdut beat in "Aduhai Alahai" and "Ku Cinta Dirimu". For that, Edry KRU deserves two thumbs up for making a dangdut tempo sound so modern and refreshing. The plot flow is predictable, leaving no surprises at the ending. It's a struggle to stick to the seats until the final credits roll up at the screen.

It may be a poignant move to condemn a local film in the language I have used but facts remain facts. And an honest factual comment is usually hurtful. When can we expect to see first-class work from our very own film professor? Do we have to wait until doomsday for one? To the very least, if some effort were put on to improvise the story here and there, "Cinta U-Turn" would not end up the way it did. Once again, another movie may hail itself as another catastrophic work to Mohaideen's profile and to the local scene in general.

Cinema Online, 23 September 2008