Srimulat: Hil yang Mustahal - Babak Pertama

The movie started really great. I was hooked from the first few minutes. As the acts were superb. Especially who acted as Teguh and Gepeng.

My excitement raised. I was eagerly waiting for what next.

But after the first stage show when Gepeng bursted into the frame, everything went downhill.

The plot was too slow. The comedy was not really funny and clever. It was kind of disjointed segments, trying to tell story of each character, but in no coherent and engaging way.

If it moved faster with much better editing and focuses on real big plot, then it could've one of the great biopic Indonesian movies have ever made.

The cinematic was actually great. The set, the prop and the costumes were spot on. Harks the golden era of 70-80s. And love the scene where Pak Harto and Bu Tien appeared.

At start of the movie, I was wondering why movie this good wasn't much appreciate. However, after watching until the end, I could understand if Babak Kedua (the sequel) would never been made.

Based on the journey of a group of legendary comedy groups in Indonesia, Srimulat. This film tells the beginning of their journey as a local comedy group that began to try their luck in the capital and became a famous comedy group on national television.

What a movie!! This movie is so amazingly funny. The humors of the ancients (of course I wasn't born yet) were so entertaining and somehow I was so associated with their humor that when I watched them I and my family laughed incessantly. This film tells the story of the journey of a group of comedians who are trying their luck to be able to appear on national television shows. This comedy group fronted by Gepeng, Asmuni, Basuki, Timbul, Tarzan, Tessy, Nunung and so on has indeed become a legendary comedy icon in Indonesia. This film for me succeeded in bringing to the story of their early career with an entertaining comedy, a story that is carried lightly and easily understood and the actors are fairly totality (some of them are even fairly similar). Almost every scene contains a lot of comedy elements that make it funny. However, for me this film also became tired quickly to watch because there were too many comedy scenes that continuously appeared so that the audience did not have a pause to try to understand and follow the story of Srimulat itself. In fact, the conflict of this film is also not so strong. The story conlict for me is too inclined to the character Gepeng who is in love so it narrows the focus of the story to just one character. Even though many characters in this film might be developed with their own conflicts. Overall, the film is funny and worth waiting for.

At first I thought this movie was just another remake of the various famous Indonesian comedy icons. So I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually more like a biopic of the Srimulat group from their early years.

What I loved the most in here was definitely the exceptional performance of majority of the cast who managed to make us believe they were the real Srimulat members, not only through their posture likeness but also through their body language, facial expressions and the way they spoke.

It was made even better by the trademark slapstick jokes that we loved, as they certainly brought back a lot of fond memories of our childhood years. Though this movie might be more challenging to be enjoyed by the new generations who were not familiar with them, it certainly would be much appreciated by those who have known them before like me and my wife. Still it is a wonderful tribute to the beloved & legendary Srimulat and we could not wait for the second part.

For my other reviews, you can visit michaelnontonmulu.blogspot.co.id.

Fajar Nugros' 'Srimulat: Hil yang Mustahal - Babak Pertama' feels like sketches, bits, and pieces of a larger film. Certain writing decisions towards the film's treatment of a biopic may have seemed revolutionary on paper, but without strong emotional layering and execution to back it up, the results are simply bland. The performances are enjoyable, but the movie ultimately lets its audience down.

We can feel the passion, whether it's behind or in front of the camera. A nice reintroduction effort of the Indonesian legendary comedy troupe. While entertaining and quite amusing, the film struggles in balancing its dramatic and comedic tone or conveying a clearer narrative since it's deploying more fragmented storytelling instead of a straightforward one.