The execrable The Barker is barely a movie

Coco (Empoy Marquez) is in love with Bela (Shy Carlos), but Bela's dad (Ronnie Lazaro) doesn't approve of the pairing. Coco pursues Bela all the way to the city, where he takes a job as a barker. Coco then gets involved with a group of shady individuals and a bag full of cash. That's the plot of The Barker, also called The Barker (Don't Know What To Do.) 

That sounds just about right. In all honesty, I (don't know what to do) with this fucking film. 

The Barker is barely a movie. It feels like something done on a whim, perhaps to capitalize on the huge success of Empoy Marquez in Kita Kita. Its extremely lean runtime of 76 minutes is full of meaningless filler, and the movie feels twice as long because it's paced excruciatingly slowly.

This is Dennis Padilla's first directing gig, and in my opinion it would probably be better if he stuck to acting. The Barker exhibits the equivalent directing skill of a grade six student making a student film as a school project, winging it on the last weekend before submission. It's a film that seems to think several pictures of the PNP logo, Bato and Duterte printed on bond paper (IN COLOR!) constitutes the production design for a police station. What extensive mise en scene! With considerable talent in the acting and technical department at Padilla's disposal, it all kinda went to waste. It's a shame, since he had national treasures like Nonie Buencamino and Ronnie Lazaro working for this film.

The film seems to misunderstand how jokes work. It's also wildly inconsistent; it seems to think male-gaze-ing some sexy woman's ass is nice, but it shies away from showing us two ladies kissing. It seems to think that Christmas lights on a coffin is funny. There's a scene where Gary Lim and Empoy practice barking through singing and making weird faces. Yay, that's a joke. Ha ha I guess. The film's jokes are corny and outdated. 

Hello The Barker, some dirty old men called, they want their dirty old tito jokes back. 

When action does happen in the movie, it's not very exciting; I found looking at my fellow moviegoers' glazed over eyes far more interesting. For a movie named The Barker, there aren't really many scenes of Coco doing the job; there are far more scenes of him daydreaming about being with Bela. Maybe the movie should be called The Daydreamer instead?

In any case, the movie ends with a dance sequence because 1) they wanted to pad the film out just a little bit more and 2) why not, they've already wasted your time for 70 minutes. After watching The Barker, I felt like I'd been swindled out of my money. If I were a devout man I'd take it as a sign that every day we stray further from God's light.

I guess I wouldn't feel as bad if I watched the movie for free or on a huge discount, like a senior citizen, or if my sense of humor were outdated or passe enough, like...

Hey...