Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash

An incompetent, interminable piece of work, Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash details the rocky (and violent) relationship that ensues between two rough-and-tumble figures (Marthino Lio’s Ajo and Ladya Cheryl’s Iteung). Filmmaker Edwin, armed with a script written with Eka Kurniawan, delivers an often astoundingly uninvolving endeavor that doesn’t contain much in the way of inviting, compelling attributes, as the movie, which runs a bloated and terminally padded-out 114 minutes, has been infused with an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink narrative that’s more interested in oddball plot turns and less interested in forward momentum – which ensures, certainly, that there’s just never a point wherein one is drawn into the one-note protagonists’ off-kilter exploits. The pervasively arms-length atmosphere is compounded by a continuing emphasis on hopelessly inept elements, including unappealing visuals and less-than-engrossing fight sequences, and it’s hard to deny, ultimately, that adopts a palpably, exhaustingly endless feel as it progresses into a wildly unfocused second half rife with frustratingly pointless diversions and digressions. By the time the laughably anticlimactic finale rolls around, Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash has cemented its place as a thoroughly worthless effort that makes one wonder what Edwin originally set out to accomplish (ie is this really what he was hoping his final product would look like?)

no stars out of ****