The
cars are flashy, the bullets are plentiful, and the women are demurely veiled.
Prepare yourself for some bickering buddy-cops, Malaysian style. At least those
cars are fast. The same cannot be said for the wits of Inspector Sani, a
conciliatory slacker on the Terengganu police force. His quiet life will be
upended when he is partnered up with Inspector Khai, the notorious “Supercop” on
assignment from K-L. When not bickering and bantering, they will work together
to bring down a nasty meth ring in Ghaz Abu Bakar’s Polis Evo (trailer
here),
which screens during the 2016 Asian American International Film Festival in New
York.
First
of all, we have to give Peninsular Terengganu credit for issuing some pretty
slick wheels to their officers. Sani and Khai will put them to good use. Khai
was dispatched to follow up a lead in Sani’s normally sleepy jurisdiction as a
way to force him to slow down a little after his latest massive smackdown. Apparently,
Sani’s old high school science teacher Adli Hashim went Walter White to pay off
debts, but when he refused to cook up the lethally pure batch demanded by the gang
leader, he turned up dead himself.
The
stakes start to rise when the gang tries to knock off Adli Hashim’s daughter,
for whom Sani long held a torch. However, things really start to get messy when
the bad guys launch a full-scale attack on the hospital she is recuperating in.
Even Sani will have to admit something is amiss given the level of destruction.
Fortunately,
there are several spectacularly in-your-face action scenes that should be
catnip for fans, because the corny dialogue is not going to get the job done on
its own. Frankly, it rips off dozens of 1980s odd couple cop movies,
successfully copying the energy, but not the wit. The opening gag in which Sani
catches a beady-eyed peeper ogling his sisters without their headscarves is
particularly clumsy, especially considering what the implications might be for
all parties in real life. Conversely, when Khai and Sani’s oldest sister Anis
start falling for each other, the film is rather sweetly chaste. Ain’t nobody
jumping into bed together, that’s for sure.
Rugged
and taciturn works quite well for Shaheizy Sam’s Inspector Khai. He is the sort
of hard-charging cop we can always appreciate. As his requisite opposite, Zizan
Razak spreads the shtick around pretty thick, but he serviceably gets down to
action business in the third act. Nora Danish is also appealingly upbeat as the
assertive Anis. We just wish she could be even more progressive.
