Redlights

Playing like a tense thriller reminiscent of the films of Michael Mann, Redlights plays up its atmosphere of uneasiness – that feeling that’s something’s up but you just can’t put your finger on what it is – to deliver a suspenseful look into the seedy underbelly of Cebu.

Written and directed by Christian Lat, Redlights, in a nutshell, is the story of how a trip of an American tourist and his sleazy tour guide of a taxi driver takes a turn for the worse as they venture into the city’s red light district.

From the onset, what’s great about Redlights is that you get the feeling that a ruse is in play, you just don’t know who is pulling it. There is the very private, man-of-few-words, Jimmy (Bobby Bowers) – a guy who could easily fit into the cast of The Sopranos; while on the other hand, you’ve got the over-eager, opportunistic, kiss-ass taxi driver played by the impressive Leon Miguel (Graceland).

Somehow, you could you say that Redlights takes the Tom Cruise-Jamie Foxx dynamic of Collateral and twists it in a way that there is no clear alpha between the two. You don’t have a mild-mannered, I-keep-postcards-in-the-glove-compartment type of driver here; this is more of the I’ll-text-mom-the-plate-number-right-away kind. Leon Miguel turns on the sleaze making his take on the driver equal parts charismatic and dubious. Bowers’ character is no saint either; equally suspicious, he carries this world-weariness you’d normally expect from a mob enforcer or some other underworld figure. Again, there is no victim or culprit during the first half of the short film. Both characters seemingly occupy society’s grey area.

With Redlights’ goal though to convey its nitty grittiness, problems arise from its editing. Employing numerous cuts and unnecessary shots to its scenes make transitions feel very jagged. Some takes seem like mere split seconds – too fast for faces to even register. Couple this with some back and forth dialogue and the results are quite distracting.
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There is one scene during the first part of the movie that seems even a bit more off, not feeling very organic to the movie’s narrative. I’m assuming this was intended to show the passage of time between the morning opening scene and the night trip to the red light district. Its just that it stumbled in its execution. If vices are a must, a shorter, faster montage akin to those in Requiem for a Dream or some other quicker paced scene would have felt sleeker, making the transition smoother.

Scoring too plays a part in removing audience’s focus on the story. Redlights has industrial score which overuses the Inception-esque “BRAAAM.” At times, this track feels too repetitive and distracting. Instead of supplementing the action, making the atmosphere more tensioned, it hogs the spotlight – and not in a good way.

It’s quite a shame that this winner of the Best Film at the Ottawa Digital Film Festival wasn’t submitted for competition at this year’s Cinemalaya. With good believable acting (especially from Leon Miguel), a tense thrilling premise, and just well rounded storytelling overall, Redlights provides the much needed crime fix that was lacking in this year’s shorts entries. I would take this over a nine-minute exposition on an assassination any day.