Agak Laen

When I was walking in to watch this movie, I didn't have any big expectation. I thought , "ah maybe this is just like most of the comedy movie where joke is in 1-3 scenes." But I was wrong, all of these comedy movies that I have watched, I've never been laughing this hard all time. Every scenes are delivered with really good punch joke where whole cinema laughing constantly. They are milking bataknese stereotype joke with bataknese accent so hard hahaha. This movie is definitely rewatchable. Although this film might be hard for you who watch dub or sub since most of the jokes are delivered in Indonesian but it's okay, just bring your Indonesian friend to watch together haha.

I think Indonesian comedy movies are saturated with stand-up talents with one-liner jokes that spread throughout a simple, nice backdrop for the main story. This caused a string of box office hits but no substance that could differentiate one movie from the others. Agak Laen proved that the formula could be fresh if brought by a really amazing story backdrop and sense of realism.

The movie has a perfect sitcom setup. A haunted house attraction becomes viral after a real person died there. It's full of great scenes with cool comedic timings, they know how to turn between drama and funny scenes well. I feel like the four characters are too many since their traits seem to be similar, hence it's blurry to remember who's who. The plot tries to give nuance with more chemistry and personal issues, and it works!

The climax is one of the best I've ever seen. It goes realistic and does not ignore basic logic even though it's comedy. I am still hugely disappointed by how they keep making blunt advertisements throughout the movie, which I think could be better. Still, watching Agak Laen gives me hope that Indonesia comedy movies do have great future.

'Agak Laen' may be a bit all over the place in terms of tone, but it is quite a fun flick all in all. It's well made too, it oddly gave me vibes of 2018's 'The Festival', particularly lighting-wise, for some reason - I didn't think I'd be making a connection between those two!

Oki Rengga, Boris Bokir, Indra Jegel and Bene Dion make for good casting, they fit as a four and do come across as a friends group. Rengga and Bokir are the standouts, for me. Arie Kriting is the one I'd rank highest of the other cast members; all of whom are absolutely fine, at worst.

The plot is a strange choice, I gotta say, for a comedy, I'm not convinced by how they blend it together but it works; even if the more sincere moments didn't quite hit as intended, at least to me. Oki's part at the conclusion is the closest a non-comedy bit came to hitting.

Also, the product placement is kinda mad, proper egregious stuff. This is my first taste of Indonesian cinema, I assume this is the norm? I only guess that because I do know that their football broadcasts are/were ad-heavy; that's how I know what Torabika is, lol.

From Podcast to the Film, The Story about The four haunted house officers are named Boris, Jegel, Bene, and Oki. It is said that the four of them served as ghosts who scared visitors to a haunted house at a Pasar Malam. However, instead of being scary and impressing visitors, the haunted house doesn't give off a scary impression at all. Even the ghosts in it fail to surprise or frighten visitors. This situation makes the ride management try as much as possible to present a scary haunted house ride. I Love Interesting Story Tealing, Acting is Very Very Good, Comedy is Amazing, Good Emotional, But the Bad Part is Product Placement, But Luckily is Short Runtime, Overall, This is Funniest Indonesia Movie I Ever See, I giving rating is 8,5/10.

With that tittle it is indeed delivers just that .. stranger things in a funny way that is. From the befinning of the movie maybe one will think it is another ordinary slapstick comedy movie from Indonesian which is the norm all this years or decades if you will.

Then the pace of the movie starts to pick up . One thing leads to another. And that is when the movie is worth the watch all the way right up till the end.

Worth to mention as well that this is oen of the movie that you will want to keep backing up the bad guys . The story telling was done in way that wont bore you down .

And yes in time the story build all around the guys and thats the pillars of it all . Yes life is hard and nothing is easy but the way life was endure was really another level.