Review of A Better Life (2011) by Kong M — 08 May 2012

Bichir's spectacular performance aside, I am not convinced with the power of this movie's story that seems to impress most other reviews I have glanced across, main reason being parts of the plot itself seems to be inconsistent with what I would expect to see in reality. The key event in this film - the truck being stolen - is what I find to be utterly ridiculous on the father's behaviour, given that he has been in this line of business for so long (and gains the trust to 'inherit' the business) he should not been this 'naive' to allow such a thing to happen WAY TOO soon. That goes the same for other inconsistent events.

Another aspect of disappointment comes from the side characters. Poor acting performance is not the issue here (assuming they are not professional actors themselves), but the main culprit is that the director has failed to allow each of these characters to evolve their roles more significantly to address the key subject matters which this film is trying hard to convey. Even the son is too one-dimensional which is far below my expectations. I do not see any hint of attachment from these characters' to the main leads nor addressing communal/political/immigration issues in their own way. Their conversations are dull, like poorly made soap operas. In fact, the only impression I had was that they are just extras filling up the time to make the movie longer than it should be. I have watched other movies dealing with similar themes but at least they have proven to be more wholesome as they do have these qualities mentioned above.