‘Tatay Kong Sexy’ Review: As sexy as pork

The most interesting thing in Jose Javier Reyes’ Tatay Kong Sexy is its title. 

Far from sexy 

Paquito, the father referred to as sexy in the movie, is hardly sexy.  

Dull beyond belief and speaks with a nagging singsong intonation, the titular dad, played by actor and politician Jinggoy Estrada, is a widower who juggles a humdrum life managing an automobile repair shop and taking care of his three children.

While it is true that sexiness is in the eye of the beholder, the movie does not make any effort to grant the character any semblance of charm to at least sway the audience into believing that a pot-bellied man of meager charisma can be considered sexy. 

It’s all a big fat lie, not unless the title is a cheeky reference to the alias of Estrada, reportedly given to him by Janet Lim-Napoles, who is accused to have masterminded the PDAF scam.

The discovery of the scam has led to the arrest of Estrada and other politicians with various other creative pseudonyms. If that is the case, then Tatay Kong Sexy – despite its lackluster production values – has at least that one effective joke. 

We can actually just stop right there, and enjoy the fact that there exists a movie with the gall to wear a title that will cement the memory of its star’s alleged involvement in one of the country’s political scandals.

 

Everything else is ill-conceived

 

But we can’t. 

Tatay Kong Sexy is a movie, and it is a movie that sees itself as deserving of viewers’ hard-earned cash for the entertainment it will presumably provide. Much more, it is a movie that aspires to be values-oriented, with a narrative that is geared towards extolling the virtues of the Filipino family.

In fact, the closest thing the movie gets to touching the dirty world of Philippine politics is the questionable profession of the father’s somewhat-love interest, played by Maja Salvador. Everything else is canned drama and sitcom-level humor.

The story is simple enough. Estrada’s father is struggling, raising the 3 children his wife left behind. The eldest (Empress Schuck) has a boyfriend but is too afraid of his overprotective father to be out in the open with her relationship.

The middle child (Jolo Estrada) is in that phase in life where he is beginning to be interested in the opposite sex. The youngest (Maliksi Morales) is perpetually glued to the screen of his gaming tablet.

He gets a little help from a sassy girl he has gotten acquainted with in his repair shop.

Reyes breezes through the narrative without a hint of sophistication. The characters have tacked on personalities, elevated only by instances where some actors’ standard television-style (but arguably effective) acting adds slivers of emotion to what otherwise would have been tedious reiterations of stereotypes.

Simply put, the movie is as bland as cardboard. It purports to be a movie worthy of the big screen, but its only real ambition is to play the values card and nothing more.

Confused values

So are the family values the movie lauds any good?

Sadly, even in that most basic department, Tatay Kong Sexy fails because of utter confusion. The movie suggests that its central character is one deserving of adulation, given the fact that he is both a hardworking entrepreneur and a responsible family man. 

However, in the service of distracted humor, Reyes writes the character of Estrada as cluelessly sexist. He scolds his middle child of not pursuing an easy lay given that he had a prime opportunity to do so, he’s fascistically possessive that his eldest daughter prefers humiliation over revealing that she has a decent beau. He’s also questionably vulgar when he talks to his beloved kids.

The movie’s primary dilemma, which involves a sudden marriage proposal that pits a middle class family with the snotty upper crust, doesn’t offer any opportunities for resolutions or any realignment of morals. 

It is as if Tatay Kong Sexy wants to reinforce the idea that the ideal Filipino father is one who is a complete and utter failure – a man who has succeeded in raising his children to be convenient liars, chauvinists, and socially awkward recluses. That is the most the movie’s meager plot can teach, moralistically speaking. – Rappler.com

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema. Profile photo by Fatcat Studios