The Assistant

At first, it was interesting to me buat after 30 minutes, it's obvious where the story is heading. The premise of someone coming out of prison and his identity is shrouded in mystery is good for me but what comes after that is so stupid.

You can spot the twist coming from miles away, what a letdown. The twist was so obvious that you might as well explain the secret of a magic show to your audience. It was that obvious.

I'm not sure why the script always need to follow obviously a certain western film. Like you cannot think for yourselves to make a movie for yourself? Always need to be like Hollywood movie.

The storyline is interesting, with a twist and turn at last. BUT it's NOT 'wow' or surprising enough, as we have seen many better than this kind of movies before. Also, as an audience, we know what the director is heading for! BUT somehow.. it's just NOT well depicted or there enough to get the right 'feeling'.

The pace is ok, slow and steady, with things going on to keep you entertained.

Well, it is the very first time, I found so many vulgar words (e.g. Fxxk, Fxxk-U, CB, LJ, S*hai..) in a Malaysian movie! It's really surprising and I love it! Haha!!

The actions are alright. BUT the director could be over-greedy, having too much in the movie, making it a poor one. Or certain part was meant to be super-cool, yet it was not well delivered, e.g. The gun-shooting scenes of the TWO cars at the U-TURN junction. We know how it shall look like, but it's just up to the Hollywood level to show the BEST of it!

Besides, the jumping-off KLCC scene is poorly presented by the CGI. OR I shall say, it is rather unnecessary, as it doesn't add much value to the movie, in fact, it leads to confusion.

The actors and actresses are all good, BUT the side-roles and others are a bit off and NOT professional enough. Their acting skills are quite stiff and not natural. BUT, overall.. it's ok for a local production.

Being a lenient reviewer, I gave 5.5 out of 1.0 for a local movie. There are plenty of rooms for improvement, especially for a psycho movie like this. Focusing on the main-topic with appropriate depth could be the key to success for such a movie, instead of being over-greedy to have too much on the plate, making it a mixture of nothing but just some empty actions.

No need to rehash the plot details. It's a revenge flick starring a wrongly-jailed guy whose wife and son were killed while he was in the slammer. Classic setup.

The dude seems pretty helpless until a psycho joins the effort to handle the essential mayhem. All the visceral kicks viewers seek from these flicks come from his gleefully sadistic dispatching of thugs as they move up the food chain to the next level of authority. Standard, gory plotline for such guilty-pleasure fare from any continent until a pretty unique, well-executed plot twist. The good sort of mayhem escalates until they jump the shark in the climactic battle.

Once they go too far with the psychological element, we're stuck with an adults-only spin on Looney Toons. Too bad they couldn't figure out a better way to wrap up this otherwise solid action offering.

So it starts off okay, you realise what the twist is, but the movie is basically 30 mins longer than it should be, some fight scenes are tedious and unrealistic. Gunfire doesn't sound right. Seem to be some ripped off scenes from other movies I have watched. The fight with Mr Unfinished Tattoo at the end is just plain stoopid. The car chase yeah maybe. The falling fight no I don't think so. CGI half assed. Some people died unnecessarily I think. And the main actor who just got out of jail, well he certainly doesn't seem like someone who's spent serious time in a hellish jail. Also I saw PASKAL not long ago and that is a far superior film, it got me interested in Malaysian films.

Storytelling, acting, action, visual, cinematography, plot twist, everything about this movie are great. Again, thumbs up to Adrian Teh for making this mesmerizing action film. It's so intense. Adrian Teh as a director on a new level.