User Reviews

To see the previous comments you'd think that this was a record-breakingly lousy movie. Quite frankly, you would be right. When I saw it, it was a question of a Maltese ex-pat tourist on holiday, a relative interest in the Maltese language, there happened to be nothing else on view worth watching and the rain was pouring down outside.

Lets try and start from the beginning shall we? I have watched enough movies, Hollywood and otherwise, to make some interesting observations. For older readers, not once did I even consider the old Edgar Lustgarten / Edgar Wallace B movie mysteries from the '50s could be duplicated. Boy was I wrong! I realize now just what classics they were after seeing Qerq!

So, Movie starts, credits come on, credits are crass. In fact, credits look like you would be half cut on dope or on some psychedelic trip, the way the graphics bounce around. Movie credits in general are supposed to be like an introduction to the tone of the film itself. And speaking of credits, why does Louis Cushcieri credit himself 3 times? Beginning, End and End End? Do we really need reminding who directed the WORST movie to ever grace the Maltese cinemas??

Acting. Or lack thereof. Or too much of, depending on how you see it. Well, not much to be said for this. In over two hours of cinematic 'enjoyment' one thing springs to mind; last few minutes witnessed a display of such abysmal thespianism that is makes the mind boggle! Witness the script: 'Feliciteeeeee Le Le Le! Feliciteeeeee Le Le Le!' One can only reply to this 'Fresh Air, Iva Iva Iva!!!'

Classic Line of dialogue. Respectable bank manager takes sample of cocaine and comments 'Prosit, prima qualita!' in THE most bored, indistinguishable monotone imaginable. Lets have some realism here. This guy looks as if he wouldn't know the difference between cocaine and Talcum powder unless it was pointed out to him.

Disbelieveable characters. The bank manager's Major-One Domo, Hector. (I ask you, is anyone even called Hector anymore??) Hes quite frankly a rubbish and incredibly useless character, put there just to feign an important tea-boy lackey for our Bank Manager buddy.

Last but not least, there's our bank manager's servant, complete with dickey-bow and white spotless gloves. Anachronistic simply isn't the word for it. Would someone care to enlighten me as to any bank manager from HSBC or BOV that has such a 'dapper' flunky?? In fact, does ANYONE in Malta have a servant, let alone one that looks like he stepped out of a 1920's cheesy Agatha Christie murder mystery? He is summoned by use of the proverbial tinkling-bell. Were I the butler, I'd shove it in the direction of our Bank manager's nether regions!

Also, Product placement runs rife in this film! For instance, ladies, how often, when receiving jewelery, would you open the box back to front, so that the contents (and conveniently enough, the manufacturer' logo) face away from you and towards the camera? Or,when several people sitting round a table drinking a well-known whiskey, from glasses bearing the label's name, have all labels pointing towards the camera? Plus one of their decorated vans, for good measure. The director must think the audience is blind, has dementia, or just has the memory span of a retarded goldfish. I assume that why he has the products, the script, the plot and anything else he finds relevant repeated ad nauseum, to the utter disbelief of an intelligent audience. Or at least a halfway-observant one.

Finally, effective 'reaction' shots.... Not applicable to Qerq. For instance, when the bank is held up. One of the characters, a wrinkly gentleman if I'm not mistaken, is zoomed in upon to capture the heart-stopping drama and fear the average citizen must've been feeling when at the heart of a bank robbery. The reaction is so heart-felt that one can see him probably pondering the terrifying thought 'I wonder if I left my bus pass at home!' Shock, horror! Really, the reactions of the extras (and of some of the main characters) were some of the most boring things one could witness, short of watching grass grow.

So whats on the agenda next for these intrepid film-makers? Just the ticket, a remake of 'Get Carter' with Tal-Lira slogans posted hither and thither all over the set. Possibly with a love scene,much like Qerq's kissing scene (the one in the garden, where the kisses have the levels of passion you'd expect from corpses.)

Finally, Thanks for making two hours of my holiday so very memorable (if not altogether enjoyable) :) Dub the film, sell it to channel 5 in the UK, show it after the pubs have shut and you'll make a lot of drunk, drugged and very bored teenagers very entertained!

This is a Maltese feature length movie, the third to be released in cinemas over the past 10 years or so. The title, 'QERQ' pretty much means 'DECEIT'.

QERQ is hideous. It is one seriously ugly movie. The photography is bland and uninspired, all TV style closeups and cramped locations. There's a distinct lack of lighting outside natural light giving everything an unhealthy gray sheen, and the actors are frankly hideous, possessing all the appeal and emotion of a clenched fist.

There's also some of the worst action sequences committed to celluloid.

And what about plot? Here is what I understood of it: In short - it's like the worst of Brazilian soap operas, minus the attractiveness.

In long - A crazy lady spends 25 years in a mental institute after her dad killed her boyfriend when she was 15 years of age. Yes. In the institute she gives birth to twin girls . She believes one of the twins died, when in fact the twin was stolen by a guy. This guy is friends with crazy lady's doctor (this is important). This guy who stole the daughter is rich and lives in a castle (well, it's a villa. A rather hideous one. But the script calls it a Castle). He is also a banker and acted by Fabian Scerri De Carlo. This is also important, especially if you're Maltese. Mr Banker looks like a nice philanthropist, but is in fact a bad piece of work who traffics drugs via an ambassador (OOOH!). But no one suspects this. Anyway, back to mental institute woman. Her other daughter ends up in an orphanage for 15 years (the script calls it the Maltese equivalent of an 'orphanarium') and later in a 'Juvenile Detention Center' for 7 more years (that's what the script calls it. I'm not making this crap up). She gets out of the 'Juvenile Detention Center' (after stabbing a girl in a swimming pool with a knife... a plot point of sort that NEVER GETS MENTIONED AGAIN). Simultaneously, her mother is also released from the crazy house by her doctor, who is also Mr banker's friend (told you this is important, this mess is all his fault). Doctor gets crazy lady employed with the banker, since his daughter wants a 'personal servant' (WHAT). Also, the daughter's name is Serenity (WHAT) and she looks like an old bag. Like all the ladies in this pile of tripe, for that matter. Anyway. Before crazy lady gets employed, though, the doctor explains to her the whole mess about how her daughter was stolen by the banker and now she's going to be working for her. Cue melodrama. Crazy lady gets a special bond with Serenity (because she's her mother, OBVIOUSLY) and gives her a necklace (THIS IS IMPORTANT).

MEANWHILE! The Other Daughter (the one released from the 'Juvenile Detention Center'. Hey this is hard work for me to okay) meets up with a friend (he's just... a guy. She knew him from somewhere?!) and they go look for work. They fail to find work. Then they meet a guy who's the Leader of a gang of thieves. He has a swank HQ in an abandoned fort kind of place. Other daughter and Friend join the gang. There's an excuse for a couple of robbery sequences (which are terrible, obviously). Thieves do a robbery at Banker's, err, Bank. BUT! at the same time of the robbery, The Ambassador visits Banker with a briefcase full of drugs! Oh no! The thieves get the briefcase and comment on how a bad person Banker is (kids don't do drugs okay). Banker panics and sends his Sidekick (a fat dude with all the appeal of a bag of rocks) to look for the drugs. He fails. Banker gets angry. Meanwhile, Thieves Leader has a PLAN. The Other Daughter looks like Serenity (she's her twin! Durr!) so the Thieves kidnap Serenity and put Other Daughter in her place! Genius! Oh, and Serenity had a boyfriend who was also part of the gang but that is an irrelevant detail. He doesn't get mentioned much. Other Daughter, however, tells Crazy Lady the whole story (after she overhears Doctor talking to Crazy Lady about the whole thing. Seriously). Then she gets revealed that she's Crazy Lady's other daughter. AWW. Crazy Lady, Other Daughter and the Doctor go to rescue Serenity.

MEANWHILE! Banker finds out where the Thieves' HQ is. He and his dudes get some guns and go for a shootout. This is a terrible mess of a shootout sequence, the kind of thing that makes Bronson's Deathwish V look like John Woo's finest ballad of gunfighting. Maltese TV viewers will realize the ridiculousness of Fabian Scerri De Carlo, world's most foppish comedy actor, doing a Charles Bronson impersonation. It's more ridiculous than anything you'll ever witness. Ever. Crazy Lady, Other Daughter and Doctor go to HQ and rescue Serenity, but not before they get to punch a couple of dudes. Crazy Lady proves that she knows 'karate', which she 'learnt' back when she was 15 - this line literally made the whole cinema (which was packed, by the way) burst with laugher. They then confront Thieves Leader AND Banker. There's some shooting and Thieves Leader bites the bullet. THEN! Banker's wife appears suddenly and shoots Banker, after giving a speech on how DRUGS ARE BAD (okay kids drugs are bad). Banker, however, proves to be tough... and shoots Serenity. OH NOOOO! Cue sobbing. But! Remember the necklace Crazy Lady gave to Serenity? Well, guess what! Yes! The pendant saves Serenity from the bullet! Hooray! The whole story is revealed (it's all the Doctor's fault) and an explanation to why the Banker's Wife appeared is given (the Butler overheard everything and told her, of course).

THE END.

Moral? DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE, OBVIOUSLY.

Usually i never follow Maltese productions but induced by friends i went to watch 'Qerq' which according to my knowledge as a cinema goer i would say it was well done. Unfortunately some people thought otherwise (though a small amount) and instead of encouraging our society for further Maltese creations, they just spewed venom and manifested their enviousness. The script was well woven and garnished with on the edge scenes which made me fathom that even the Maltese have ability in this field. The scene which impressed me most was the one professionally shot in the pool with an underwater camera which made me feel as if i was watching a foreign film. I proudly laud 'Qerq's' cast and crew and hope in other similar productions.

The Story was an antiquated old time ultra drama series rolled into 2 and a half hours of wasted cinema time. I was not the only member of the audience who could not help laughing out loudly during the most serious of scenes. Never ending useless killings. The old bullet in the pendent trick. Missing twins. The whole effort was wasted on the lousiest of stories which was rendered incredible even to the simplest of minds. What the hell, it did achieve one thing. It has made me so angry that it is possible for presumptuous "diletants" to get their work on screen. Woe also to the distributors who had the guts to call this a film. It was just a waste of everyones time, even you the reader.

A must see, Qerq, the movie, the tragedy, the emotion ... you WILL go 'ROFL', 'LOL' and 'LMAO' ... literally. I don't suggest being drunk ... it might cause a heart attack to even perfectly healthy men and women. Qerq, the comedy. Starts with an hour long cry: "Noooooo!", the likes of which they don't even do in an anime comedy and ends with a bullet stopped by a thin pendant which, assuming it was made from such a sci-fi metal which would be bullet-proof at that level of thickness (try something like unobtainium out of Star Trek ... and that would be a MAYBE). But that's not the core of the movie. You get to see theft, at its best. You get to see spying operations over conversations such as: "How's the food?" "It's good." "I like it when you food is good." "Really?! Me too!" *smile* *smile back* ad infinitum. But that's not even close to the real reason why this movie is such a masterpiece. Conversation. Every time you meet a complete stranger, after 5 min (and I AM exaggerating the length of time ... it's actually MUCH shorter) you come to like them so you tell the all of your past. All characters, such a coincidence really, have that kind of ... 'trait' ... so as to make sure that you know everyone's background REALLY well. But still there is one more thing regarding conversation. As soon as a character shows his true evil nature, his voice switches from that of, say, a sheepish loving husband who would go crazy if his wife or daughter get a paper-cut, to that of an aggressive drug lord who sounds (or tries to sound) as if he would kill anyone for money (including his wife and daughter). Needless to say that there were a lot of people who 'seemed' (assuming it's the first time you're watching a movie) to be good but turned out to be evil. They're all obvious really, even a child would notice. Still we must give him credit since you'll NEVER laugh so hard when watching a movie (yes, it beats the crap out of the REAL comedy movies).

But it's a tragically dramatic thriller.

That said, I confirm what previous people said ... the people SERIOUSLY believe this is the "best movie ever" and "an all-time classic" are in dire need of psychiatric attention.

The emotion of Qerq is a hearty welcome retreat to the past... There is nothing to spoil love, trust, confidence or even the events... Grace (Frida Cauchi) lost her boyfriend in her teens by being stabbed. She didn't resist his death and spent 25 years in a mental hospital. Grace sitting alone and lost to the world uncertain and perplexed, unable to understand how life can be cruel to her. If Grace could spend an hour in Jason's mind, a minute in his heart, a second in his soul to discover what he really feels loving him... Why Jason has to die so young? Why destiny is against us sometimes, smashing all our hopes and happiness? Why do we feel so impotent in front of the will of God? Why can't we understand that we are 'blessed with Life,' and this is our great gift, our true treasure!

The Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran once said: "Love knows not its own depth, until the hour of separation." And let me say that 'nothing is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of Life.' They say: Time mends a broken heart and true love never ends... But if true love never ended then time wouldn't have to mend. Frida Cauchi gave a splendid performance, Louis Cuschieri's sincere direction commend the film to a wide audience eager to a flood of tears, and touching music – composed by Jason Cassar enriching the beauty of the film.