At
maybe fifteen years-old, aspiring rapper Hendrix is just a kid, but he is
already displaying rapper like tendencies. He has no problem with stealing from
just about anyone, even though he always seems to get caught. It is a hostile environment
to grow up in, especially for a semi-orphan-like Hendrix, but an elderly
bookstore will help broaden his perspective in Alberto “Treb” Monteras’s Respeto (trailer here), which screens
during the 2018 New York Asian Film Festival.
Hendrix
and his pals, the tomboyish Betchai and the Porthos-like Payaso set out to burgle
Doc’s store, but they wound up trashing the place instead. In lieu of charges,
the three punky kids agree to fix up his store with their own sweat equity. At
first, the old man is aloof, but he slowly starts to take a protective interest
in the kids, particularly Hendrix.
It
turns out Doc was once a well-known poet and critic of the Marcos regime, but he
has not written any new verse in years. In fact, he is increasingly alarmed by
the parallels between Duterte now and Marcos then, but when he finally speaks
out, it will be to give the duplicitous Hendrix a taste of his own medicine at
a battle rap showcase (it is tough to watch, but it is far and away the film’s
best scene).
Respeto is undeniably
gritty, but every heavy-handed punch is telegraphed way in advance. This isn’t
so much of a narrative as it is a laundry list of urban pathologies. We have
seen this all before and we have seen it better in films like Neomanila and Hamog. Kids are nihilistic, because they are responding to their
grim, predatory environment. We so get that, but then what?
Abra
might be a popular rapper in the Philippines, but he just doesn’t have the
screen presence necessary to carry the film as Hendrix. Instead, it is the old
cat, Dido De La Paz, who takes ownership of Respeto
as the memory-haunted Doc—and thank goodness he does, or the film would have
really been flat.
