Review – TOPAKK aka Triggered (2023 Pigeon Shrine FrightFest)
Gleefully gory indie action thriller from The Philippines that uses PTSD as a catalyst for its relentless stream of bullets, swearing, and imaginatively extreme screen deaths.
Miguel and his unit are ambushed by a notorious band of cultist psychos in a jungle north of Manilla. After a vicious skirmish, Miguel watches on as his comrades and best friend are brutalised and beheaded. After which, he loses his shit completely and prescribes the nasty nutters a dose of their own machete medicine.
Now working as a security guard at a steel warehouse he is ravaged with survivor’s guilt and haunted by his traumatic past. When two young drug mules enter his protection he takes on an army of bent cops and ruthless drug dealers as a conduit for his own absolution.
Richard Somes‘ intensely violent old-school actioner takes aim at its target audience and empties a full clip of carnage into their faces. Low on budget, but high on invention he constructs a savage sandbox of blood and metal where ‘guns don’t get people killed. Principles do.’ A world where the concept of the double tap has devolved into a multitude of slashings and hacks.
Bruising fistfights, blazing firearms, and spectacularly gnarly set pieces combine to overshadow any concerns over the flimsy plot and shouty script. Pacy and punishing it smashes the audience into compliant submission as we look eagerly forward to the next casual brain-splattering and meticulously staged bonce bashing. It’s mostly violence for violence’s sake and those with a disposition towards the no-frills frag fests of yesteryear will have a fabulous time.
Arjo Atayde‘s Miguel is a fascinating creation with a Hulk-esque aspect to his PTSD. He tends to take a placid backseat until unwarranted harm has already been inflicted on the undeserving before he explodes in a murderous rage. Once he is Triggered, the alternative title for this picture, his barbaric meltdowns are savagely effective and leave us wondering why he doesn’t just go fully postal before the innocent are abused.
Equally interesting is Julia Montes‘ young drug peddler Weng. Initially embroiled in the mayhem to protect her annoyingly troublesome and aptly christened brother Bogs, she turns out to be a one-woman abattoir with an appetite for blood-spattered destruction. Montes gives it her all in an extremely physical role and is rewarded with some of the juiciest slabs of slaughter up for grabs.
However, the real star of the sanguine show is of course the mega violence. The warehouse backdrop is filled with a plethora of tools and machinery with which to inflict the most injurious indignities. Cue outrageous obliterations with massive girders, industrial bandsaw savagery, and gigantic fan blade guillotining.
Following the extreme action trend popularised by modern exponents such as The Raid films, The Night Comes for Us, and Headshot, anything and everything at hand is fair game in the fracas. Look out for a truly tortuous torch death that drags Topakk over the border into horror film territory. On top of this, we get some grueling hand-to-hand beatdowns that continue this resourceful approach to bloodshed. Not least a jaw-dropping dust-up with a fire-enraged asshole who is blackened and smoldering like a badly barbecued burger.
Fans of foul language will also be in profanity paradise here. There is a near-constant cacophony of egregious wordsmithery as characters earnestly vow to ‘fucking kill’ other characters and every man jack of them gets called a ‘fucking piece of shit motherfucker’ at least 50 times. Seriously, this movie has a fucks per-frame rate that makes Scarface look like an elocution lesson at an alpine finishing school.
Completely at ease with its boisterous playbook of balls-out rage and retribution Topakk is not perfect by any means. It is so determined to be high-octane and edgy it often forgets other cinematic staples such as tone and nuance. But it is superbly made for the money and its ferocious fun is infectious and gratifying.
★★★★
UK PREMIERE
Action,Thriller | The Philippines, 2023 | Cert. TBC | 112 mins | Raven Banner | Dir. Richard Somes | Arjo Atayde, Julia Montes, Sid Lucero, Kokoy De Santos
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