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It is of epic proportions, engaging the resources of an entire country. The head of the studio has put all else aside to personally direct the final scenes. With a cast of thousands, realistic costumes and practised actors, nothing is spared to make this propaganda film a box office success. Alas, it is doomed. It has fatal flaws.
The studio, in serious straits, suffering from a series of stupendous spellbinders that have burned the budget badly, has invested all its remaining assets. Borrowed and bonded to the limits of credibility, this last megaproject risks everything to save the company. Therefore, as history, it must be believable. It is not. It is first a flutter, then a fade.
Failure at the boxoffice means the collapse of the studio, and personal bankruptcy for all the executives who have invested their livelihood and their livers in all its productions. It is their tragedy. Good theatre it is not.
The scale is admirable. All shots are taken on location. Nothing is spared to provide a realistic effect. When gory scenes are called for, the actors are really killed. The blood is real. Their heads are blown off. There are no special effects in this production. There are no stunt scenes in this one-shot extravaganza. Everything is portrayed with a deadly realism.
The director himself is handicapped. He cannot appear on the set. Thus all staging and choreography must be carefully arranged before the scene is filmed. This is made easier by the last film, which also had police action and courtroom scenes. The actors are thus re-enacting their old roles, and little re-writing is required.
The boldness of the epic is remarkable, even for a studio which has made a number of large productions. There is a cast of thousands, each playing a realistic role. The usual documentary of the movie making itself, made by the media concurrently but from a distance, records the daily dialogues. The documentary footage, though faulty, fills the pages of the local press and provides running commentary for the TV news.
The ending is sadly predictable. Although no expense is spared to conceal the construction of the sets and scenes, still there are glaring gaps to reveal the shoddy underpinnings of the play. It is not possible to pretend. In the round, Mollywood seems tawdry and tasteless. The blood is wasted. The tears are real enough. The emotion is touching. But the senseless attempt at realism stirs a deep distaste for this whole affair, and there is nothing further to say which could explain or justify the magnitude of the waste.
As theatre, it is trash. As drama it is a disgrace. As a national epic it is a shame. Ring down the curtain. Cut! Stop the cameras. Let the heads roll. Finis. Close the studio.