Salam Aidilfitri! I know It’s only the second week of Ramadan but the Raya spirit is already bubbling up inside me. I’ve got my baju raya set and been singing Raya tunes in my sleep, so it’s safe to say that I can’t wait for Raya to come grace us!
This time round, the bad movie I’m reviewing is a Raya themed one called “Raya Tak Jadi”. It’s ironically fitting given the circumstances surrounding last year and this year because of the pandemic. But how bad is it, really?
One might argue that this isn’t a bad movie, because the cast consists entirely of comedians or aspiring ones and that it’s supposed to be a feel-good and funny film. I disagree. Wholeheartedly. I had to suffer through this pathetic excuse of a comedic film and when I reached the end, I already had my will written down.
So let’s unpack this together, shall we?
Disclaimer: Fair warning! If you plan on watching this, major spoilers ahead! You can skip ahead to the very end for the TL;DR if you want to be spared the details.
Raya Tak Jadi
This movie came out in the year 2011 with a rating of 4/10 on IMDB. That’s pretty accurate, in my opinion. The IMDB page wasn’t very informative regarding any further details of the movie though. The only information was about the storyline, which literally read “About 2 friend who is about to celebrate holiday, and suddenly they become kidnapper” which is fair and to the point, so kudos to that, I couldn’t have described it better myself.
The movie starts off with brothers Shuib (played by Saiful Apek) and Bob (played by Johan Raja Lawak) waking up late for sahur. Bob has this strange memory loss disability where he loses his memory every time he wakes up. He doesn’t remember who he is or who anyone else is — it’s apparently genetics but wasn’t given any further explanation throughout the movie. So I don’t understand why that was important to point out in the first place. It wasn’t even funny?
The movie was set during Ramadan and mainly about the shenanigans of a kidnapped rich man (played by Jalaluddin Hassan) and his accidental captors, which were surprise, surprise, the brothers.
I was contemplating watching either Badang or this movie but since it’s almost Raya, I figured this movie was better suited. I regretted that pretty quickly, if you can’t already tell. I don’t know if Badang would have been the better choice but Mak didn’t raise no quitter, so I powered through with whatever energy I had left.
Look, I’m not coming from a place of hate, but this movie genuinely makes me want to pull my hair out, out of sheer frustration.
Throughout the movie, the two brothers continue to make horrible decisions. The first horrible decision was, granted, accidental when Shuib mistook a stolen taxi for his and in the trunk of that taxi was an old man who was kidnapped in order to extend the Raya announcement. That’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? That part wasn’t exactly bad, per se. It just took a while to process.
The Gist of the Movie
The old man was kidnapped by two goons when their boss made a bad business deal to send a few hundred boxes of dates before Raya and apparently the only way to right this wrong is to kidnap the person who’s announcing when Raya will be on, because obviously, there won’t be any Raya celebrations when a specific person doesn’t announce it, right?
This didn’t make sense to me. Surely they’d pick someone else to fill the role when they realise the original person didn’t show up, no?
Shuib is a taxi driver and Bob’s a security guard. The trouble began when Shuib went to pick up his brother after his shift to go back home, he stopped by a restaurant to pack some food to eat.
Seems like a normal task, but while he was there, the restaurant was raided by JAIS. They were on the lookout for Muslims who were not fasting (this included the two kidnappers that were there too because they claimed to fast “half-day”) and in his haste to escape, Shuib accidentally mistook their stolen taxi as his and sped off to go pick up his brother.
I actually have a bone to pick with these two so-called bad guys. They had the most annoying and ridiculously dumb personalities. Hence my constant use of the word “goons” when I refer to them. They aren’t the least bit funny with their one-liners. Neither were they likeable in an “aww there’s more to them than just being henchmen” way. They’re just plain intolerable.
Continuing on, with his brother in the car, Shuib went to deliver the food that he bought to their mother. When they opened the trunk, they found the old man laying there, seemingly lifeless. Naturally, they freaked out and assumed that the dead person was murdered. Well, yeah, he wasn’t moving and if I were to find an assumed dead person in the trunk of my car, I would probably scream and call the cops.
But instead of going to the police, these boys decided it was a good idea to first dump him in a forest before thinking twice about it and continued to drive around places to find where they could actually get rid of the body.
The scene cuts to when the goons were then let go from JAIS custody and were now looking for their taxi. All the while Shuib and Bob went on their little adventure to find this dead old man a new grave. There was a scene when they were taking break at a 7-Eleven, Shuib bought alcohol and tried to share it with his brother only to get reprimanded because it’s against Islam to be drinking.
I’m a little confused because Shuib seemed like the one who was the more religious of the two, but there’s a saying about not judging a book by its cover, so I guess there’s that. Don’t ask me why I thought he was more religious, he just gave off that kind of vibe. So it came out of nowhere when he proved otherwise.
The bottle seemed to come in handy though as they found an opportunity to get rid of the old man by making him seem like a drunk who was simply passed out. But that plan failed because people were angry at them for not taking care of their friend who was obviously intoxicated and they had the audacity to just leave him out there while they went home.
I have a question, though. How long does chloroform last? Because the goons used that to knock this man out, it’s been like a good two days and he’s still passed out. Is he just really weak? I was starting to think he was actually dead.
The brothers stopped in front of a random store with a display window where they decided it was a good idea to put the old man in. A few seconds later, they seemed to have regretted their decision and turned around to take him back when he (gasps!) disappeared. Don’t worry, he reappeared back in their taxi a minute later. Oh, how curious!
I have no idea how he managed to do that without them noticing, they were the only ones there. How could a man stumbling around and recovering from getting chloroformed manage to sneak back in the car without making a peep?
A few things happened in between where they got another fright when the old man made himself known, then passed out again. They brought him back to their house to have a funeral for him, still thinking he’s dead but he woke up mid-chant, demanding where he was and scaring the village folk into thinking he was a ghost.
I was expecting that part already, so it was alright. I’ll give them a pass for that one.
Throughout the old man’s disappearance, his wife had called the police and asked them to look for him, not really caring about his well being more so that he promised her a trip to Los Angeles when Raya came and “if you don’t find him, how am I supposed to go?”
Sis really married for money and made sure everyone knew. But hey, same.
Shuib, Bob and Shuib’s girlfriend (played by Wan Sharmila), whom we met during the funeral got to know the old man (now known as Haji Ehsan) and decided to send him back home. Low and behold, he got too comfortable with them and didn’t want to leave. It turned out that he was scared of his wife because she was too strict with him and polices the way he spends money.
After a strange and frankly, very disturbing, reenactment of how his wife treats him (inclusive of a cat suit and whips *throws up in mouth*), they agreed to help him out. He had this brilliant idea of a plan for them to “rob” him. Please don’t ask. Please.
At this point, I find myself trying to pry my eyes open. This movie is taking a lot out of me. I feel like it should’ve ended half an hour ago. Just send the old man back home, get a reward for the hassle and go home, no? But of course, then it wouldn’t be a comedy, would it?
So That’s How It Ends?
In all honesty, this movie had a few good moments that made me giggle. By “a few”, I meant maybe just one scene because I cannot for the life of me remember any of the others. It was towards the end scene when the brothers pretended to blend into their curtains because it’s the same colour as their baju raya.
But most of the scenes just had me confused and frustrated. Just when I thought the problems would stop or ease up, they doubled. These guys seemed to attract trouble and handled them very badly. Again, I get that it’s a comedy but where’s the funny? I spent half the time trying to flatten the crease in my forehead because I was frowning too much.
Powering on, since the goons lost Haji Ehsan, they managed to find out who the taxi belonged to and decided to threaten Shuib and Bob’s family into making an exchange — Haji Ehsan for their mother and sister.
I’m not going to go into details, because I would prefer not to suffer through it a second time around trying to recall the movie. I’ll just tell you how it ends, okay?
It’s a happy ending, obviously. Haji Ehsan returned home just in time for the Raya day announcement on live television, the goons and their boss were captured by the police and sent to jail.
And while they were at the police station to give their statements, they found out that the bad guys had tried to kidnap the wrong person after all, because the one announcing the Raya date was actually Haji Ehsan’s twin brother.
It’s like a plot twist, I guess. I wasn’t expecting it but I also wasn’t exactly surprised. Since this movie took away my will to live, I wasn’t looking at any sort of possible outcomes at all.
Bear with me, we’re nearly at the end.
Fast forward to the first day of Raya, we find ourselves in Shuib and Bob’s home while they wallow in self pity about how poor they were and didn’t have the budget to prepare for Raya. But fret not, boys! Haji Ehsan stopped by their house for a surprise visit and decided to spend Raya with them, giving them quite a lot of money and offering them a job at his company.
I don’t know if that’s a smart move or not on his part. I mean, sure they helped you out but do you really know them? The two brothers just accepted his proposition, no questions asked. Which is also not such a smart move. Negotiate, at least? You don’t know what he’s offering.
The whole thing just seems a little bit strange to me. I mean, yeah, sure you know these guys but you were unconscious half the time they were with you? And they tried to get rid of your presumably dead body. But what do I know, right? If I were to write this film, I would have at least given one of the brothers a brain. Or maybe the henchmen because they seem like they needed it the most.
Should I Watch It Or Not?
In my personal, humble, opinion? I don’t think you should watch it.
Save yourself the trouble of wasting an hour and a half on a movie that was made for people with zero brain cells and laugh at literally everything and anything.
That seems kind of harsh, I must admit, but I really do feel like it was a waste of time. The whole movie felt like an out-of-body experience to me. I spent a whole day watching it. Only because I was procrastinating watching it after the first six minutes. I had to physically psyche myself up to continue watching the rest of the movie, it was that bad.
For the TL;DR
I rate this movie a 3/10 ketupats
Entertainment value: 4/10 ketupats
Plot: 2/10 ketupats
Recommendation: No. If you’re looking for a movie that’s plotless and just a way to kill time, I guess you can try this out. I would concur that it would most likely disappoint you… But have fun, I guess!
But in all seriousness, bad movies are subjective. If I didn’t enjoy this one, doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t either. So, take a chance. Who knows, it could be your favourite bad movie. Or I can give you my therapist’s number just in case, to deal with the aftermath of it.
If you take pleasure in reading bad movie reviews, here’s our take on Ngangkung!
