Movie Review: "Merantau"

The film “Merantau” is best described as Indonesia’s shot at breaking into the international action-movie scene. With a name like that, it would be hard to imagine how the Western audience would be willing to give it a fair shot, but with other martial-arts hits such as Thailand’s own  breakout films Ong Bak (2003) and Tom Yum Goong (2007) starring Tony Jaa, that’s not too hard to imagine. To put it bluntly “Merantau” is Indonesian for a sort of “vision quest” or a rite of passage, basically a boy leaving the comforts of his home for the wide world and enter the phase of manhood.  And that’s exactly the premise of the film. 

The movie starts out with scenes of prayer and family-life, and then suddenly breaks into martial-arts sparring between someone and the movie’s protagonist Yuda (Iko Uwais, who does his own stunts by the way). This is the world’s first taste of “Silat”, an ancient martial-arts style originating in Indonesia, and which also features prominently in Iko Uwais’ second film The Raid: Redemption (2009). Written and directed by the Welsh-born Gareth Evans, both films are heavily action-fuelled but also radically different, with Merantau having a mellower and occasionally soap opera-esque feeling to it. 

The story follows Yuda leaving home for the hustle and bustle of the big city, Jakarta. While on the bus, he shares a word and a seat with another man who gives him a phone number, and says he too is going to the city for work. But once there, Yuda realizes the number the man gave him doesn’t work, and decides to spend the rest of the night at a construction-site.  The next day while buying lunch he spots a kid about to make way with Yuda’s bag. The thief makes a run for it, and a chase ensues! Just when he catches up to him, the kid tries cutting a deal (50/50?.. 70/30?), but Yuda isn’t buying! This marks one of the few comedic scenes of the movie, but as the movie progresses it gets more and more serious. Now don’t get me wrong, there are other funny parts throughout the movie but they have less to do with satire than actually action-scenes so overblown or over-acted, that you cannot help but laugh (the death at the elevator scene, comes to mind).

After catching the kid, they’re quickly distracted by an argument between a girl and another guy. Turns out it’s the kid’s sister Astri (Sisca Jessica) and what seems to be her pimp Johni (Alex Abbad). Yuda quickly gets into a fight with the guy and “rescues” her, or so he thinks. Instead, he makes things worse and gets her fired. This is basically the start of an entanglement between Yuda and the girl, which will lead to bar brawls, street fights and whoop ass all over Jakarta city. Johni is just a pawn in this game, but in charge of providing girls for human-trafficking to Ratger (played by the Danish Mads Koudal) and his buddy sidekick Luc (played by the Frenchman Laurent Buson). Not surprisingly, it wouldn’t be a martial-arts film without the final fight between the hero and the evil “boss” near the end.

The gist of the movie is Yuda trying to rescue Astri from the traffickers. The action scenes are plenty but the moves are not too exaggerated or off-the-wall. While some complain about this, others defend it for sticking to Silat’s realistic style. At 135 minutes long, the movie often at times seems to drag on, with bursts of action-scenes in between. If you’re into emotional family dramas and that type of thing, this might be your cup-of-tea more than it was mine. However, I found it a little annoying how the protagonist could be so naïve as to forget whatever he is doing just to right every wrong he seems in front of him. The ending though, was a little different than what we’re usually accustomed to. I don’t want to give it away, but I rather liked it. 

Cinematically, the movie is well made albeit the humble budget. Iko Uwais’ acting is well done and not significantly different from The Raid, except the level of action. His real-life role of being pushed into the spotlight almost from nowhere goes well into fitting the role for his character. For Gareth Evans, it marks a completely different style from his later movie. While The Raid was non-stop action with ample gore in between, Merantau is far moderate, something more aptly suitable for the family and maybe the girlfriend, unless she’s into uber-violence like The Raid. Merantau is a movie sweet and silly all at the same time, that’s the way me and some of my friends feel. If you don’t know who Iko Uwais is, I recommend you watch The Raid first and then move onto Merantau, and if you have already then what are you waiting for, go watch Merantau!