Sometimes I wonder why I don't watch more local movies. There are some great ones out there, I'm sure. But there's also a lot of crap. And man, I Luv U Pare Ko is totally crap. Despite the horrendous murder of the language that is the title of this movie, I figured it can't be that bad since the names were familiar and I kind of vaguely remember the names from other independent projects?
But this movie is not the the acclaimed Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa (which I haven't seen, admittedly). This is something else entirely. This is a sad, terrible movie.
But of course I can't judge the local movie industry based on a single bad movie - and I don't. But I can't limit myself to only watching those movies that movie critics find to be good - that means waiting for reviews before watching and not giving independent projects like this a chance.
So you take the good with the bad. And this is something else entirely. But I still watched it from start to finish in order to give it a decent chance.
Synopsis: I Luv U Pare Ko is a Filipino gay comedy movie directed by Neal "Buboy" Tan. The movie was released by Kris Film Productions.
Sam (Rocco Nacino) is best friends with Carlo (Rodjun Cruz) are best friends who do almost everything together. They work together and they hit the gym together. They eat out a lot together and they go drinking together. And Carlo gets to watch Sam when he engages in aggressively homophobic behavior including beating up effeminate gay men and other such random acts of violence. Totally the best sort of friendship.
Of course Carlo is gay. Not only is he gay, he's like actually flamboyantly gay, but he hides this while around Sam in order to avoid losing the friendship. This is especially important to him since he has a major crush on Sam that he has been hiding for the longest time. And this secret flame that he holds for him totally justifies doing or saying nothing about Sam's homophobic bullying of other gay people.
What I Liked: I suppose the actors are somewhat attractive, if you're into that sort of thing. They also eat a fair bit on screen. I sort of enjoyed those moments.
Oh and spoiler alert, Carlo dies mid-way through the movie. The thought of him being dead made me happy to some degree.
What Could Have Been Better: I'm not sure where to begin and how to avoid this becoming a senseless rant. The story is terrible given the problematic premise based around Sam's homophobia followed by Carlo's creepy "I can forgive anything" brand of unrequited love. Throw in a later twist that puts Carlo in a position of power over Sam, which he immediately tries to use to hopefully get Sam to love him back or something like that. Did we have to go back to the stereotypical path of everyone thinking gay can only find love as sugar daddies?
Spoiler alert again - but given how this ends with Carlo as some sort of weird ghost among the ghosts of other gay people and STILL pine over Sam is bizarre. What is even more nonsensical is how Sam suddenly decides to carry on a posthumous "relationship" with the thought of Carlo along with Sam's insulting claim that had he known Carlo was gay sooner, he wouldn't have beaten up all those other gay guys. Love wins, right? But this isn't love. This is wishful thinking on the part of the creative team behind this movie.
TL;DR: I watched I Luv You Pare Ko so you don't have to. This movie is more insulting than anything else and really shouldn't be part of the iflix library. This is my first ZERO star movie. Absolute ZERO.
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