Quick Review #52: Idoujirei wa ongakutai!

Title: Idoujirei wa ongakutai! / 異動辞令は音楽隊！

Rating: 2 /10 

Recommended for: 

Those who want to watch a music-themed story about the underdogs struggling at work and life but don't want too much angsty or emotional drama

Liked:

- While the story left much to be desired, I think that the cast did try their best to deliver good performances although they were definitely capable of more and better stuff. 

Disliked: 

- Perhaps it was because of this movie trying too hard to pack various elements into the story within 2 hours that everything came across as delivered quite half-heartedly. For example, the lead character had various struggles in life i.e. singlehandedly taking care of his mother who has dementia, going through a rough patch at work and being relegated to a department which supposedly is unimportant because of his stubborn-ness and extreme way of doing things and having problems with his teenage daughter. His issues alone would have provided much material to be explored and it would have been interesting to have the work and family situations mirror each other and offer more room for thought. However, just when you felt that there was going to be a bit more to see, the story shifted focus to the next point and you can't help but feel, "is that all to this?". While I get that the direction of the movie was probably not to go big on emotions and keep this as relatively light entertainment peppered with some serious issues, the film did come across as something hardly making a dent The main plot and subplots were barely scrapping the surface of the issues presented so there was very little insight nor any plausible justification about how some of the characters behaved the way they did. 

- I was quite disappointed with the music element of this movie which should feature prominently and have a bigger impact. Movies of this nature about a struggling band/orchestra/musicians etc. would usually begin with them playing atrocious-level of music and then improving to such a stage when they would inspire and touch people. However, by the time you get to the climax scene, I thought that the before-and-after difference was there but pretty negligible. The level of music never really got to the inspiring and touching level typical of such movies because to be honest, the music corps weren't that bad in terms of their playing, they were just not very coordinated and the playing was not smooth, that's all.

- I personally felt that the movie was projecting the music corps in a very unflattering manner and wondered if it did anything good to improve the perception of them in the end. To begin with, it was not explained properly why the music corps in the police force were so belittled and looked down on other than this viewpoint of them not contributing to the actual act of catching criminals. This bias against them was "reversed" partially only when they did help to capture the criminal. What this seemed to show is that, if you don't contribute to the core KPI of catching a criminal or solving a case, you have no value in the police force. 

However, the crux of the movie should be to illustrate that the music corps are there to serve a different purpose and contribute to crime fighting in another manner. And yet, if everything boils down to crime fighting in a conventional way, I question the value of having this movie because it only perpetuates and accentuates the notion that the music corps are secondary and have little value. That is especially unfair when you consider that those in the music corps had to juggle their core duties with the practice time for the music corps and yet didn't get anything in terms of tangible rewards for this. In addition, they were ridiculed for being part of the music corps which was somewhat described as a dumping ground for people who couldn't do well in the organisation for various reasons. If the movie was meant to convey the message that people who are on alternative or unconventional paths can still achieve success, I don't think it was very successful and convincing in this regard.