Dead Kids

The premise of a bunch of amateurs gathering together to pull off a great crime - robbery, kidnapping, murder, or something else - may have been done many time before in movies, but even then I always find the premise irresistible. When I sat down to watch this particular example, I was especially intrigued because it was not an American effort, but instead a Filipino effort. The new setting gave this some novelty, which did help sometimes when the movie was showing off its shortcomings. I'm not saying this is a BAD movie - it's not boring, and I admit that part of me was interested in seeing how things would be wrapped up in the end. And despite a fairly low budget, it never looks so cheap to be distracting. However, the movie has its downs as well as ups. It doesn't seem to find a consistent tone - sometimes it's goofy, and sometimes it's serious. Also, while I know the central figures are just teenagers, even then they seem really stupid and haven't taken the time to plan things out (it seems they make their plans in 48 hours or less.) Some viewers may also have a problem with the fact the characters are constantly changing between speaking English and speaking Tagalog (though I know this is how many Filipinos do speak.) I'd recommend it to viewers who don't have their expectations particularly high.

Felt catfished by the trailer that promised an edgy, dark comedy and exciting heist movie with social commentary. The editing was fast paced and dialogue chosen was controversial.

The film had barely any of that. It fell flat and became this cliche melodramatic sob fest. You cannot feel sympathy for any of the characters because their choices are so illogical and just dumb. The characters are flat and stereotypes that aren't even comedic, it's just annoying. The underdog characters have no charm either.

The direction was bland. A lot of people sitting down and talking scenes for a supposedly exciting heist film. The color grading was interesting at least. It's basically a pretty and drawn out episode of MMK. This movie was a disappointment, especially with the screenplay and it's frustrating because the trailer showed what it could have been if it lived up to it's potential.

Good to passable acting. Cinematography is ok. Cringy Dialogue. The main character is supposedly a smart dude but almost everything is dumb. What was even the point of Sue Ramirez's character? When you search for this movie you see her name on the list of actors first but for what? She wasn't really a plot device or a 'Chekov's gun' in a sense. She was just there...

... gone wrong? Well you have to watch to know. Though I would recommend watching the trailer first or at least read about what this is ... about. Not everything is for everyone and those teenage boys can be quite annoying. And when you come to their "plan", you may be even more annoyed.

The movie tries to keep it as real as possible, but gets quite crazy at times. Coincidences and everything included that is. The resolution may make some mad too, but it is what it is ... I've seen worse movies and as bad as the characters are, the movie is decent (acting has some downfalls though)

While the Tagalog cinema is flooded with cheesy romantic comedies, it is often nice to have a break away from that genre, so I was excited to get to watch the 2019 movie "Dead Kids" by director and writer Mikhail Red.

However, it was a short lived excitement, because "Dead Kids" turned out to be a tedious movie experience. An experience of which I managed to last 1 hour, then I simply gave up out of sheer and complete boredom. Nothing much of any interest happened through the course of that ordeal of an hour I sat through. And I can honestly say that I have no intention of returning to watch the rest of the movie, as the storyline failed to interest me at all.

I will say, however, to the movie's defense that the acting in the movie was good, and the actors and actresses seemed quite adept at making the characters come to life on the screen. Just a shame that they had nothing to work with in terms of script and storyline.

This was a disappointment for me and I am rating "Dead Kids" a mere three out of ten stars. This is by no means the best that the Tagalog cinema has to offer.