Reggie Gvoiz as Ba'on. (Courtesy of Putaar Production)

Tak Sempurna (Imperfect) starts with a convincing set of interesting characters and potential storyline, only to back out of the promise and leave the audience with questions in the end.

The artists behind Tak Sempurna ' a self-styled Indonesian hiphop movie ' might have intended to channel the improvisation and freestyle elements of the music genre, but the result is a movie going all over the place.

Genre speaks no language in the movie. The film goes from comedy to drama and then sliding into a comic, hitting rom-com on its banks, but then back to dramedy ' always shape-shifting along its way ' utilizing, however, a commendable command of satire and black comedy.

The first cue of how seriously not serious the movie is when it opens with The Narrator, which is played by veteran actor Mathias Muchus in leather cowboy hat and vest, twirling unlit cigar in one hand and a toy machine gun in the other.

In a mafia godfather tone, he introduces all the characters in the movie, one by one, first with the main ones. He starts with Ba'on (Reggie Gvoiz), a skinny young man with loud tattoos all over his body, but yet quiet due to his tongue been clipped when he was a young boy.

The mute Ba'on partners with outspoken Dey (Derry NEO) in their marijuana dealing venture, which is hidden under the cover of a street side chicken porridge business. Dey is shown making a lot of money from the illegal business, but secretly spends most of it to finance foster children.

Dey and Ba'on live together with another close friend Sabun (Dallas Pratama), a religious and devout young man who makes a living selling pirated DVDs.

A father figure to the three young men is Prof (Norman Akyuwen), the marijuana supplier for Dey and Ba'on. Prof, who is a neurotic middle aged man showing some derangement of a psychotic, cannot bear his life without regular intake of marijuana smoke.

They live in a densely populated area of a Jakartan slum where poverty and violence surrounds them like the
polluted air they breathe.

One morning, Ba'on saves Mel (Tya Arifin), an aspiring teenage soap opera actress, in a street robbery. Both of them survived the ordeal, but Ba'on, who has a crush on Mel, ends up bringing Mel's cellphone with him home.

Ba'on plans to return the phone to Mel, but things get complicated because there is another party that wants to get their hand over the phone. The phone turns out containing a sex tape and text conversation between Mel and a Transportation Agency officer I Wayan Kusuma (Iwa K).

Mel later meets with Ba'on, Sabun and Dey and has her phone back. She, however, is intrigued by Sabun's piety and decides to dig further into her feelings to him.

I Wayan's wife, Bu Yamin, has ordered thugs to retrieve the phone. The conflict between the boys and the thugs, leaves Ba'on and Prof injured. The plot thickens Dey's become another innocent victim of the fights.

With the help of Ba'on and Sabun, Dey plans revenge against I Wayan, Bu Yamin and all her thugs.

TS is directed by Herman Kumala Panca, who also co-written and co-produced the movie. Set in the slums of Cawang in East Jakarta and Baturaja and Benhil in Central Jakarta, the movie offered a very realistic setting for the story.

Derry played a convincing Dey, whose speech is riddled with slum lingo and slang. Despite out of character moments, Reggie also managed to deliver body-language-dependent Ba'on. Dallas churns out Sabun's pious charisma well, but not so successful in carrying his characters other side as illegal trader.

All the three main characters have interesting background and conflicting sides within themselves, which is made more interesting with Norman's theatrical performance as Prof.

However, these potential turned out to be only a lure, without being further use or developed in the story.

The use of an affair issue as a central plot drive is also a questionable choice due to lack of strength, although admittedly humor-inducing.

Beside a number of plot holes in the story and actors gaffe here and there, the movie also screen an ample ' bordering needless ' amount of cameo time featuring, among others, rappers Saykoji and reggae musician Ras
wMuhammad.

The movie features an 80 percent cast of Indonesian hip hop artists, which translates also to dominant hip hop music in the scoring.

From early in the movie, TS stirs some moments of throwing their hands in the air like they just don't care; half hour in the movie, the audience might realize: they shouldn't.

Tak Sempurna
(85 minutes, Putaar Production)

Director: Herman Kumala Panca
Screenwriters: Baskoro Adi Wuryanto, Herman Kumala Panca
Cast: Derry Neo, Reggie Gvoiz, Dallas Pratama, Tya Arifin, Norman Akyuwen, Iwa K, Sania, Mathias Muchus
Producers: Ferri Yuniardo, Herman Kumala Panca

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