The war on drugs has never taken more literal form than under the command of Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, who rose to power on a pledge to rid the country of dealers and addicts alike — and delivered on his promise in the bloodiest fashion possible, with police summarily executing thousands of people over an 18-month period. A real-life atrocity ordered by a cartoon dictator, it would, if not grimly factual, feel like the stuff of grotesque dystopian fiction. In their kinetic, pavement-pounding doc “On the President’s Orders,” filmmakers James Jones and Olivier Sarbil play up to that sense of deranged reality as they hit the streets to observe Duterte’s murderous campaign in action: The result, shot and cut with buzzing urgency, plays as a propulsive dirty-cop thriller minus any genre safety nets.
Set for a summer theatrical release through PBS Distribution, “On the President’s Orders” will probably...
Set for a summer theatrical release through PBS Distribution, “On the President’s Orders” will probably...
- 5/2/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
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