Action thriller from start to finish

Film review: A Hard Day

“If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.” — Murphy’s Law.

Luck was apparently not on the side of homicide detective and Philippine National Police (PNP) intelligence officer Edmund Villon (Dingdong Dantes) the night his mom, Elsa Villon (veteran actress Marita Zobel), passed away.

On his way to the chapel, Villon hit a man on a dark road and had no choice but to hide the body inside his trunk. The only witness was a faithful Jack Russell Terrier, although an unreliable street camera footage caught the scene.

Along the way, Villon was subsequently flagged down in a police checkpoint and was questioned for drunk driving. He introduced himself as a PNP officer, but failed to show an identification. As his identity was being verified, what ensued was a one-against-four fist fight.

Raising Villon’s stress level further was the investigation done by PNP Internal Affairs, led by (Lander Vera Perez) and his team, who ransacked their office and discovered cash inside his drawer, all during the wake of Villon’s mom. Everything pointed to him as a crooked cop.

The evidence was readily “fixed” days later by his boss, Chief Silvestre (Al Tantay) as well as his teammates led by Arturo (Janno Gibbs), with Elmer (Gary Lim) and Elton (Kedebon Colim).

In the funeral parlor, a visibly tensed Villon managed to hide the dead body inside the coffin of his mom. Thanks to a dozen, white balloons supposedly for his daughter’s birthday, used to cover the CCTV, so his moves would not be detected and exposed.

Unknown to him, however, the corpse had been shot even before his car hit the latter. And days later, Villon discovered the guy, Apyong (Nor Domingo), was not just an ordinary stranger as his photo emerged in the file of missing persons in their precinct.

Meanwhile, Villon’s younger siblings Jefferson (Rafa Siguion-Reyna) and Erica (Meg Imperial), were always sympathetic to their elder brother. They are his trusted souls also in taking care of his daughter, Yanni (Lhane Key Gimeno).

Midway into the story, the antagonist to the hilt, Lieutenant Ace Franco (John Arcilla), surfaced into the scene and made everything hell for Villon. The latter received an anonymous call asking him where he took Apyong’s body. Franco apparently owns a bar with Apyong and the place doubles as a drug lab.

Apyong holds the key to where he and Franco keep their fortune stash amassed from manufacturing and selling drugs. Up until the day Apyong died, the key was still with him. No wonder, his dead body turned into a messy, smelly carnage once Villon decided to unearth the corpse, looking for the key.

The MTRCB gave A Hard Day an R-13 rating, apparently because of violence and use of foul language.

Director Lawrence Fajardo managed to maintain the breakneck pace of the action thriller from start to finish. It was hard to miss the tension, so make sure, you will not leave your seats once the film starts. Never predictable, the thriller will keep you endlessly guessing what will happen until the end.

Since most local viewers have not seen yet the original, South Korean version, they have to contend themselves with the Filipino adaptation which, definitely, did not disappoint.

Dingdong had no qualms looking good on the big screen. In A Hard Day, with screenplay by Arlene Tamayo, he did not have to dress to the nines. Villon is not a glamorous role for Dingdong. In most of the scenes, he was seen only in his denim jacket. The only scene he was seen wearing all white was in the interment of his mother.

John was the complete personification of a villain, but Dingdong was at par with everything that John showed on the big screen. Their two-minute duel in the end, that took four, grueling days to complete, was one of the hardest — and longest to shoot — in the film.

The ending of A Hard Day is certainly enviable for anyone aspiring to be in Villon’s place. Anytime.