Review | ‘The Panti Sisters’ is a bit of a drag

Unfunny, hurried and stiff, The Panti Sisters could have worked if it were given more time to reach its great potential to be smart, witty and substantial.

FROM left: Christian Bables as Samuel Panti, Paolo Ballesteros as Gabriel and Martin del Rosario as Daniel.

The premise was promising and hilarious. Three brothers — all gay drag queens — are propositioned by their estranged and dying dad: Whoever successfully gives him a grandchild will inherit lots of moolah. The idea alone is the stuff of comedy — drag queens, in all their flamboyant garb, challenged to impregnate women for material gain.

Alas, what a waste of an exciting concept. Directed by Jun Robles Lana (Die Beautiful) and written by Ivan Payawal (I America, Born Beautiful), The Panti Sisters, one of the 10 entries in this year’s Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino, feels rushed and lazy, and it portrays gay people as nothing more than horny caricatures.

Gabriel Panti (Paolo Ballesteros) and his brother Daniel (Martin del Rosario) are summoned to the mansion of their homophobic dad, Don Emilio Panti (John Arcilla), along with their illegitimate half-brother, Samuel (Christian Bables), for some major news. It’s the reunion of the Die Beautiful and Born Beautiful cast.

Don Emilio confesses that he is dying of testicular cancer and has little more than a year to live. He professes his desire for a grandchild from each Panti son, offering P100 million each. However, if only one brother manages to provide an heir to the Panti house, then this lucky son will collect a total of P300 million.

The promise of great wealth naturally motivates the Panti “sisters” to compete and plant their seeds in an agreeable woman willing to share their values and desire for material wealth.

The film is light entertainment, not intended for heavy ruminations but mostly for gags.

So, the audience is taken to each brother’s mission to sire a child. Gabriel tries to get it on with his gal pal (Roxanne Barcelo); Daniel rescues a battered and pregnant neighbor (Ali Forbes); and Samuel takes advantage of his ex-girlfriend (Via Antonio) who is head over heels in love with him.

Meanwhile, the Panti matriarch, Nora (Carmi Martin), must endure the presence of Don Emilio’s mistress and Samuel’s mother, Vilma (Rosanna Roces), while the grown men do every thing they can to get their female “business partners” pregnant.

The movie feels as if it were done in haste. Even the actors sometimes try to chase their lines, strained in remembering their dialogue but nevertheless managing to deliver them in the nick of time, mostly doing ad libs with forced jokes.

Their “adventures” in trying to get their respective female friends pregnant are not funny, considering these scenes should have been the gold mine of both wit and slapstick. If that’s not challenging enough, they also have to comply with Don Emilio’s other rule: As long as they are staying in his mansion, strictly no gay displays. They must act like “real men.”

This threat, however, is not utilized for comedy. This should have been an opportunity to hilariously portray gay men struggling to be straight, with their inner drag-queen desperately trying to come out. But we don’t see this struggle. In fact, there is barely a struggle in this movie.

The film provides plenty of homage to classic films, such as Himala (1982) and Ikaw ay Akin (1978), but they are stilted and too studied. The talented Martin and Roces were underused; they served merely as fixtures, no different from a lamp shade or a couch.

Ballesteros, Del Rosario, and Bables are all excellent actors, but given such little characterization to work on, they’re nothing but Barbie dolls — beautiful to look at but essentially cardboard cutouts of drag queens.

Of course, the film is light entertainment, not intended for heavy ruminations but mostly for gags. But then the gags are sad and labored, where the gay characters don’t feel human, but more like amorous predators.

This makes the audience wonder: After all the pro-LGBT going on in the country, here you show a shallow illustration of gay men whose singular joy in life is seeing men with abs and that includes their cousins’ abs (Marc MacMahon, Luis Hontiveros and Addy Raj)?

In the end, it unabashedly preaches so many things that are neither thought-provoking nor groundbreaking, which makes the film only more contrived. There’s a little painful touch on spirituality, when Bables’ character tearfully asks if God sees him, a gay man, and we at least get a deeper insight into an LGBT member’s internal dilemma, but that’s just about it.

Unfunny, hurried and stiff, The Panti Sisters could have worked if it were given more time to reach its great potential to be smart, witty, and substantial.