While Jose Abdel B. Langit's Mapanukso (Vivamax, LDG Production, 2024) maintains a light-hearted feel for the first 45 minutes or so, there comes a turning point near the end of the second act that hurtles the film into a vortex of “the dangers of the male stripping business” cliches that fly across the screen with all the subtlety of a Reefer Madness to the forehead, but with virtually no amount of self-awareness. The film’s downfall is the fact that it had to have a plot replete with paper-thin characters. Putting it quite bluntly, Angelo (Itan Rosales) is a massive douche. He’s highly unlikable, presented as charming, but comes off as arrogant. Angelo wanders through the world with a highly undeserved sense of entitlement and becomes petulant when he can’t have his way. Sean de Guzman is actually quite good lending Carlo a degree of authenticity that makes him at least relatable. You feel like you’ve known someone like him before and while you might (rightfully) think he’s arrogant, you can’t help but want to be around him. He has an air of accomplishment that’s completely unwarranted and entirely fabricated, but is held aloft by De Guzman’s presence and conviction. He’s also a dexterous dancer, his limbs are flexible and malleable as the dubstep baselines he dances to. The best parts of the film are, without a doubt the dance numbers, which almost make you forget the suffocating melodrama surrounding them. It’s a shame that the rest of the cast doesn’t make the same impact or investment. Rosales tries his best, but there’s only so much he or anybody else could do with Angelo, he never once seems believable as an adrift 18-year-old. Only Primo (Marco Gomez) gets anything like character development and that’s only when he’s stoned out. What makes the film so completely disappointing is its hoary, shopworn take on the world of stripping.
There isn’t a cautionary tale trope that screenwriter Quinn Carillo doesn’t love, making sure to throw in as many as she can. I’m not saying that Mapanukso can’t be genuinely dramatic in-between the crotch-thrusting on-stage antics of the young men. It flirts with the idea of how someone like Carlo doesn’t quite fit into the real world but that’s quickly abandoned for another scene of someone doing something lurid. The strip show elements are intended to be background setting. Granted, it’s hard to call it erotic, because it isn’t that at all. Male strip shows aren’t about eroticism, it's about cheap thrills. Violent pelvic thrusts are common choreography and the whole thing seems so overtly sexual that it actually becomes inert. Don’t tell that to the women in the audience, however, because they’re all going crazy for it since this is one of the only outlets women traditionally have. And this brings up another point: this film is strictly for the ladies. The film may have been marketed heavily to gay men, which makes total sense because if there’s one thing gay men love, it’s a full basket and an ass so tight you could bounce coins off of it. However, there’s nothing gay about the film. There are no bromances to speak of, not a single man in the audience and the idea that the men may end up occasionally entertaining other men is never even approached. It’s a heteronormative fantasy and one of the ways the film feels distinctly unreal. Everything is geared to appeal to a traditional female demographic to the point of absurdity. If you wanted to see Mon Mendoza or Calvin Reyes shake their stuff, don’t bother. You would be better off checking out their shirtless photos online, after all the pictures have about as much depth as the characters they portrayed.
Screenplay: Quinn Carillo
Director of Photography: T.M. Malones
Editor: Kurt Jimenez
Production Design: Jay Custodio
Music: Dek Margaja
Sound Mix: Paulo Estero
Directed By: Jose Abdel B. Langit
