TIFF21: Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash

Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, the new film from Indonesian New Wave auteur Edwin, is a throwback to 1980s Hong Kong action dramas. It has melodramatic romance, energetic but sloppy action scenes, and a jumpy synth-heavy score that kicks in at the most dramatic moments. But for a film with as ridiculous a title as Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, you expect more ass kicking action, more stirringly sentimental melodrama, more genre pleasures, instead of the truly strange, soggily paced blend of arthouse and chopsocky that we get.

To be sure, there’s certainly an audience for this type of film, especially at festivals. The programmer at the Toronto International Film Festival, Peter Kuplowsky, likened the experience of watching Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash to rediscovering a lost movie from the 1980s. There’s more than a kernel of truth to the comment. The film simply works on a wavelength that isn’t common anymore, with a bouncy throwback score and shot in 16mm with the kind of casually distant straightforwardness that’s endearing to cinephiles with a penchant for old B-movies.

Based on the novel by Eka Kurniawan (who co-wrote the screenplay with Edwin), the film follows street tough, Ajo Kawir (Marthino Lio), whose fearless approach to dishing out and taking violence is directly a result of his sexual impotence; as strange narration in the opening scene tells us, only a man who can’t get it up can face down death so fearlessly. He meets Iteung (Ladya Cheryl) working as a bodyguard for one of his targets, does violent battle with her, wins by the skin of his teeth, and falls hopelessly in love with her. They get married, but his impotence rears its ugly head again—or doesn’t, as it were.

The romance is a vehicle for Edwin to conjure melodramatic sequences that dance on the edge of camp, shocking plot twists, and detours into surreal encounters with ghosts that recall more sedate and enchanting Southeast Asian cinema like that of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. It’s cute, but all a bit much at 114 minutes, especially when Edwin is so haphazard with the pacing. Whenever an action scene flares up, it's a welcome relief, injecting some energy into the proceedings that grow sidetracked by Ajo pouting for long stretches of time or Iteung repeatedly dealing with a sleazy ex who won’t leave her alone. The action choreography is deliberately sloppy and Edwin doesn’t do much with the camera. At least it’s a joy to watch Ladya Cheryl fling herself around and dismantle others while dressed in distinctly ’80s wear, with blue jeans and a killer perm to boot.

If you go into Vengeance Is Mine expecting an action film, you’re likely to be disappointed. The fights are fun, but they’re window dressing for an exploration of masculinity, misogyny, revenge, and, yes, impotence. This bears fruit, especially in the exploration of trauma and how it ripples out through time like a soundwave. The scenes involving a ghost of the past are particularly striking, with an uncanny performance by Ratu Felisha who appears with angular made-up features and a creepy stillness that’d be more at home in Uncle Boonmee. But the bulk of the film is still devoted to Ajo and Iteung’s romance, particularly Ajo’s side of the equation and his struggle with impotence.

While many genre films play with impotence through subtext, Edwin’s film goes full bore, which plays into the charmingly upfront tone of the film, but doesn’t bring anything else new to the equation. As well, as the film progresses and you realize the goofy tone is a front for a more serious investigation of mature themes, you start to wonder whether this is truly the avenue to investigate the crime of rape or the dysfunctional structures of abusive relationships. Perhaps Edwin is commenting that these elements have always been embedded within the genre itself, but if that’s the case, why the goofy, even loving, tone? However strange the film gets, you never get the sense it’s a satire, so a critical read of its themes clashes with its affable presentation.

However, the thing that ultimately unravels Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash is something pedestrian, but all-too-often overlooked in contemporary cinema: lethal pacing. This type of film begs to be 80 minutes long in a true paean to the films of the past it’s emulating, but since there’s no commercial incentives to tighten it up, Edwin is free to meander, with digressions, detours, and a limp structure to the narrative. That it all ends up with a shockingly abrupt ending is proof to the fact that the ambling experience of watching the film is more a result of unsure intentions than deliberate ambiguity. It’s a film buoyed by its eclectic approach to the material, but undone by a basic inability to satisfy the necessities of the genre it’s playing in.

5 out of 10

Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (2021, Indonesia/Singapore/Germany)

Directed by Edwin; written by Edwin and Eka Kurniawan, based on the novel by Kurniawan; starring Marthino Lio, Ladya Cheryl, Sal Priadi, Reza Rahadian, Ratu Felisha.

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