‘Honor Thy Father’ at 10: Church as a crime syndicate

To mark 10 years since its original release in 2015, Erik Matti’s Honor Thy Father is now screening in SM cinemas with tech upgrades — remastered and released in a completely new 5.1 audio mix — and now in black and white.

With the ongoing hearing on anomalous flood control projects, it is worth a visit as we live in a country with a culture of impunity.

Matti has always been open about his abhorrence and deep intolerance for Christian fundamentalists. In fact, the On the Job director has long been known to publicly raise his social media fists without reservation against religious folks, sometimes with warnings to his Twitter (now X) followers: “Be wary of people who try hard to be nicely righteous in the name of God because often they are the most dishonest. #hypocrites.”

In his recent public Facebook post announcing the anniversary release of the John Lloyd starrer, Matti said he had been inspired by the “acetylene gang” — a literal family of miners organizing heists in Luzon.

“That stuck with me. But I didn’t want to do a story just about them. That it’s not just a heist movie. I want to explore crime in general. White collar vs. blue collar crime in general. And that’s where the organized religion plot came in. I wanted to pose a question: which is a more acceptable criminal? The ones who have the talent and the skill to steal? Or the ones who, in the guise of kindness, love and righteousness, steal so much more from the people who believe in them?” he wrote on his personal Facebook.

Matti and Michiko Yamamoto’s story, with the latter penning the screenplay, tells the story of Egay (John Lloyd Cruz), a skeptic husband to his religiously fanatical wife, Kaye (Meryll Soriano), who reluctantly joins her in the gatherings of the tight-knit religious group, along with their daughter, piously named Angel (Krystal Brimner).

Egay only condones his wife’s die-hard devotion to the Church because Kaye’s hypocrisy is the family’s source of income.

Inside the gaudy church building, Kaye feverishly praises Yeshua. But outside of worship services, she’s a scammer, peddling her father’s get-rich-quick scheme to the greedy members of the Church.

Then comes the explosion: when Kaye’s father disappears and the people’s money is all gone, the churchgoers’ true colors are revealed — they instantly transform into violent and vengeful savages, baring their hypocritical fangs and becoming real threats to Egay’s family.

With their lives in danger, Egay strips off all niceties and lashes out at Kaye, at Kaye’s God, at the Church of Yeshua, at Bishop Tony (Tirso Cruz III), and ultimately plots a heist with his non-religious criminal brood to save his family.

Honor Thy Father, melodramatic underneath its minimalist veil, is a social critique and an abrasive attack against fundamentalists. Indeed, this was a gutsy move on Matti’s part back then, to translate his deeply personal take onto the big screen, considering the Philippines is a predominantly Christian country.

His fictional Church of Yeshua is really the central character here, and reflects what the director clearly believes: Christian church leaders/founders are criminals, milking money out of their white-collared members, while followers are portrayed as the worst kind of blind fanatics — an entirely different species whose greed passes through generations, down to their kids who clamor for fried chicken at a birthday party.

But regardless of one’s worldview and opinions on religious people, the film (and it looks way better in color) is not as weighty as it presents itself. It is not intentionally wacko, as in Yorgos Lanthimos’ surrealist absurdist Kinds of Kindness (2024), about abuse and control, including religious manipulation.

Matti’s characters are thinly developed, and his Church of Yeshua and its flock of white-wearing believers, led by the clownish Bishop Tony, feel like caricatures — a middling and superficial portrait of a brainwashed charismatic group. And this cartoonish portrayal weakens its critique, because it feels more like parody.

The heist lacks suspense and thrill, but then one can argue Matti is not out to entertain but to spark discussions and bring to the surface a culture of corruption. But the sequences are done hastily and without much thought or build-up.

In 2015, the colored cinematography was a visual treat: scene after scene of pretty frames and a gorgeous color palette. Now in black and white, it still proves the competence of John Lloyd Cruz as one of the best actors of his generation. In fact, casting him is Matti’s best decision — giving Cruz, back then, a chance to step out of character and explore his talents outside of his old romantic-lead mold.

While I was among the minority who was not ecstatic about Honor Thy Father (for me, On the Job is Matti’s best work) for its cartoonish characters under the guise of intelligent critique, it is still one of the memorable movies of the century in local cinema.

It may be undercooked — a technically glossy but paper-thin personal commentary that is nevertheless thought-provoking: In the land of greed, power, and corruption, the non-religious are less evil, according to the gospel of Erik Matti. In the spectrum of evil, the churchgoers are the worst, in the movie’s opinion. The Church of Yeshua and Egay’s criminally inclined family are both crooked, but at least the latter is not a group of hypocrites.

2 out of 5 stars

Now showing in SM cinemas