Citizen Jake is an important film in today’s Pilipinas.
It is a bleak but necessary look at the cycle of abuse and power in the country. It confronts the audience with blatant truths disguised as fiction and offers no way out nor redemption for the characters.
There are no good guys in Citizen Jake. Not even Jake. The film shows us that the people we may regard as evil may be motivated by some sick sense of love for country and are doing what they think is necessary. It shows us that we are all haunted by the ghost of a political past. We are abandoned by our heroes. We are bred from a system that tells us that there is an inescapable divide between a master and a slave; where justice is unattainable. We watch helplessly as life is drained out of our country because we are held down by our own sins. And in the end, just like in real life, it is the little people that always end up dead and fucked.
