Si Doel The Movie. Image courtesy of Falcon Pictures.
I got nothing to say about this movie really, except that it is not one of Indonesia’s better efforts. Mostly I’m just proud of that pun I came up with in the title. Based on a popular TV series from the 1990s, it picks up several decades after the show ended and gives us an update on the titular character Doel, a man of impressively boring character who goes to the Netherlands to catch up with his ex who also, it turns out, has also been raising Doel’s now-teenage son. He is met in Europe by a man with the largest nose I have ever seen on a human face, and is accompanied by the comic relief, an old weirdo whose village manners are meant to be contrasted comically with his worldly adventures in Europe.
Doel is a man who has spent his entire life repressing human emotions, and thus the character is about as interesting as a bar of soap. The story is supposed to be about how Doel feels conflicted about whether he should stay with his wife back in Jakarta, or go with his ex and his son in the Netherlands. Also, about his awkwardness meeting his son for the first time and trying to craft some kind of relationship with him. Now, that MIGHT make for a kind of interesting soapy melodrama. But the problem is that Doel sucks. When he finds out that he’s got this 14-year-old son they have like a super weird breakfast together and Doel doesn’t really make any attempt to talk to him. They just stare at each other. That shit is super weird. I dunno, I already forgot exactly what happens but I just remember leaving that theater thinking Doel is really bad at fathering. And husbanding.
Also, all the cast are noticeably fatter now than they were back in the 90s. This movie should have been called Si Doel: Older and Fatter, and then it might have actually been good. The funny thing is that Doel is played by actor Rano Karno who also wrote and directed the film and is also the governor of the province of Banten in Java. Something tells me that basically what happened is Rano Karno said to somebody, “Hey let’s make this movie starring me, which I will also direct, and it will just be about me moping around the Netherlands for 90 minutes” and, because this is the governor of Banten, everybody was like “Sure thing Boss!” And that’s how this movie got made. Probably.