More and more people have been falling in love with Filipino media lately. Between the rise of P-Pop groups and international success of teen rom-com series The Jewel of Section E, the future looks promising for an industry that was shunned even by Filipinos not long ago.
The Four Bad Boys and Me is 100% free for consumers to view online. As its title suggests, the story is based on a shoddy Wattpad novel. However, the film was produced by Star Cinema, the same company that’s been able to elevate substandard material time and time again, like with the 2014 film She’s Dating the Gangster.
A completely free film with English subtitles sounds like a treat, but Four Bad Boys is charmless, a bore, and a chore to finish.
The film starts with Jeydon (Gelo Rivera, also a member of P-Pop group BGYO) dancing in a room with a black curtain behind him. The camera angles are bad. It just keeps moving from left to right. All wide shots. Really? Not even a little spin or close-up?
For two minutes, we’re just watching this guy dance in a room with a plain background, with the dullest camera work ever. Even nugu P-Pop groups have better production on their performance and practice videos than that.
The opening scene sets the tone for the rest of this mess.
Ostensibly, the plot follows Candice (Anji Salvacion), a high school senior (sixth form student for Brits) who hates the titular four bad boys on campus. But one day, when she’s walking down the school corridor, a boy pulls her into a dark closet and kisses her in the dark without her consent. She assumes Jeydon did it and falls in love. Because who wouldn’t fall in love with a guy who forces himself on you, right?
She’s Dating the Gangster features a similar scene, where Kenji (Daniel Padilla) pretends to kiss Athena (Kathryn Bernardo) to make his ex-girlfriend jealous. But for all of that film’s faults, Kenji didn’t actually kiss Athena; it was all for show. Plus, it was released in 2014. You’d think 11 years later, people would realise that such scenes should be removed or re-worked. Instead, Four Bad Boys offers an even more violating version of the trope.
Even so, that’s a generous summary of this incoherent, overstuffed movie. At least that makes it sound like it has an actual plot, but really, Four Bad Boys is just a string of every Wattpad cliché imaginable.
In less than two full hours, you’ve got that mystery kiss, a love triangle, Jeydon’s ex-girlfriend being a mean girl who cheated on him, a makeover for Candice, and even the threat of the two leads becoming step-siblings. It’s packed to the brim with nonsense that isn’t even entertaining to watch.
Four Bad Boys has four good things going for it: namely, the solid performances of Harvey Bautista (Marky), AC Bonifacio (Tiffany), Dustine Mayores (Troy), and Krystal Brimner (Kim). Sadly, the four are under-utilised.
Despite having the best chemistry, Tiffany and Troy’s relationship only starts to progress an hour into the movie.
Brimner only appears in a couple of scenes. However, she and Brent Manalo (Lucas) have a confrontation scene near the end. Manalo’s incredibly stiff and wooden delivery emphasises the contrast between him and Brimner, a super strong and committed actress. What a waste.
In the final scene, all of the characters dance at prom. This isn’t even the best prom dance scene that Rivera has been in. For reference, Rivera and his BGYO groupmates had a cameo as themselves in the final moment of He’s Into Her. As polarising as the last season was, that closing scene was absolutely magical.
Their fans might say that I’m just a hater. But I don’t hate these actors at all. Although her singing scene comes out of nowhere (like all of the musical sequences in this movie), Salvacion has a lovely voice. These people have talent… though some of them could definitely benefit from more acting classes. But surely, all of these actors will be in good films someday. They’ll have better projects. This just isn’t one of them.
In the meantime, if you’re interested in some cute, fluffy Filipino teen romance, try the original Four Bad Boys and Me series instead. It’s far from a masterpiece, but is still adorable and provides creative ways to compensate for the production team’s lack of resources and budget during the COVID lockdown.
Or The Marahuyo Project. Or, well, literally anything else.
The Four Bad Boys and Me is out now. You can watch it for free here.
