How I was Blown Away by "The Janitor"

"The Janitor" is one of the movies that is featured in this year's Cinemalaya.  It stars Dennis Trillo, as Crisanto Espina, a cop who was suspended for shooting dead a drug user/possessor who was a minor.   While waiting to be reinstated, he works as an instructor for a security agency and it is also during this time that he was given an assignment to finish off the suspects in a bank robbery.  Among other famous names accompanying Dennis Trillo in the movie are Derek Ramsay, Richard Gomez, Raymond Bagatsing and LJ Reyes.  It is directed by Michael Tuviera.  Watching 'The Janitor' was a delight for me because Dennis Trillo just happens to be my favorite actor and to me, he can do no wrong in his acting.  

What I liked about the movie:  Of course, to me, Dennis Trillo, acted excellently. He showed just the right balance of emotion in all the roles he had in the movie: as a husband, son, cop and teacher.  I liked the message of the movie which is:  People are victims by the very system they created.  In the movie, Espina, unwittingly killed four innocent people because of a wrong intel report.  The suspected look-out gave the names of people who actually had nothing to do with the robbery just to make his interrogators/torturers stop torturing him for information.  Upon learning that he killed innocent people, Espina's belief and faith in the police force just went crashing, naturally.   Could be because he realized that torture does not really produce the desired results.   Crisanto also probably realized that he should have made a follow up research before setting out to eliminate the suspects. It did not help ease Crisanto's case that his father constantly berates him for his ineptness.  Other members of the cast that I found effective were LJ Reyes, Richard Gomez and Derek Ramsay and Raymund Bagatsing. 



What I did not like about the movie:  The story line was really simple and they could just have stuck to it without adding as 'palabok' the family affairs, especially the sick mother and the abusive, foul-mouthed father.  They looked to me like characters from a telenovela.  There were scenes that were not necessary, especially the part where Crisanto's father (Dante Rivero) forced himself on his invalid wife (Irma Adlawan).  I think it was uncalled for and not needed in the movie.   There were instances that I would have loved to see Dennis shed some really, gut-wrenching tears, especially at the moment that his son died at birth because of his absence at the time when his wife was going to give birth.  If only in that moment, Dennis was able to show his dramatic prowess, he would probably win best actor for this year's Cinemalaya.  That would have been the highlight of the movie.