COMEDY BEYOND LAUGHTER

THIS is an unauthorised sequel of Anakku Sazali, the memorable 1956 movie made by the great P.Ramlee.

In the original, Sazali is the pampered, prodigal son who goes from spoilt to rotten. It is only after he rapes a girl and gets involved in a gang robbery that his protective father realises that he has erred all those years in indulging the boy. One should be content to let the story end there forever more, but... sigh, here's an unwarranted sequel, 30-odd years in the unmaking.

When Anaknya Sazali opens, it is years later, after Sazali has been discharged from prison and settled down with a family of his own and a boy named Farid. Worried that history would repeat itself, Sazali (played by veteran M. Rajoli) shuts son Farid (Ahmad Idham) from the outside world. In time, with no schooling, no friends and just a computer for company, Farid turns into a recluse.

An extremely shy person, Farid secretly communicates on-line with a teacher named Kamilia. But he's too shy to meet Kamilia (newcomer Noraini Morat) in person.

Enter Amat (Hafiz Asyraf), a Dennis The Menace type who can turn a whole household and anything around him upside-down in just five minutes, and things will never be the same again. For reasons of his own, the mischievous Amat decides to help Farid.

When the encounter a doctor (Jalaluddin Hassan) with a wonder drug, Seroxat (Shy No More...!?) an excited Amat decides to do an experiment and gives Farid an overdose so that he can muster the courage to meet Kamilia in person. The magic pills work miraculously.

From zero to hero, a newly hyper-active Farid starts to woo Kamilia and even condemns his parents past lives, much to everyone's shock.

Soon Ahmad Idham's Farid begins to develop a split personality a bored, annoying Mr Bean type one minute and the next, he's a whiz kid with a (huh?) magnifying glass. Why the magnifying glass? Is it to show that he is a Sherlock Holmes-buff and just as intelligent? Apparently not, his antics are more irritating than clever.

``Anaknya Sazali is beyond comparison. You should watch it as a genre," says a veteran scriptwriter involved in the project. What genre? The director doesn't seem to be able to tackle the story about an extremely shy man who wants to get out of his cocoon and resorts to gimmicks.

Even a heavyweight like Azean Irdawaty looks lost in the movie. No amount of good acting could have helped Azean here. As Sazali, M. Rajoli overplays himself in some scenes but on the whole he is quite tolerable. But pray tell, why does Rajoli screams "Aku Malu..." continuously for a good 10 seconds at the start of the movie?. It made me cringe in my seat and want to repeat the line after him.

The two actors who has a field day toying with their characters are Ahmad Idham and Jalaluddin Hassan.

Many thought that Ahmad Idham did pretty well in the teleseries Cinderella which made him look like the ideal romantic hero. What a pity he has torn that image down with this role as Farid the nerd.

Jalaluddin Hassan doesn't seem to have developed as an actor. As expected, he goes overboard playing the pseudo-intellectual doctor. Looks like he has developed a trite style of acting cliched and boring.

New child actor Hafiz Asyraf is quite promising. For a newcomer, he is upbeat and confident. What's amazing is he shines despite the sorry script and poor direction.

The idea of Anaknya Sazali is quite good but the execution leaves much to be desired. To say that Anaknya Sazali is Drama Minggu Ini (DMI) material would be grossly unfair because there are some TV dramas which are better produced.

Eurofine took a big risk by engaging new director Jack Ad Din for this RM800,000 effort. The production note says this is a comedy with a difference. Indeed it is. It's so different, in fact, that instead of laughing you get annoyed.

What genre was it again?

BY ZIEMAN - PUBLISHED 22/7/2000