Finally -- the first in 2017 -- we have a Thai film worth recommending. Chalard Games Goeng (Bad Genius) is a flashy, nail-biting multiple-choice thriller -- the film's best sequences take place in an exam arena, with 2B pencils scratching and the clock ticking as the student "genius" of the title transmits the answers of the test to her "clients", first through hand signals and later through an elaborate, time-zone-sensitive digital shenanigan.
The manipulation of the rhythm can feel heavy-handed -- this is Thai filmmaking in the school of Hollywood thriller -- and the ending may leave the delicious moral grey zone and shine in a light (it is always less interesting when everything is black and white). But that, after all, can be forgiven. Nattawut Poonpiriya, in his second feature film, moves the plot fast and deploys the kineticism of an action film into the static space of an exam room. He also attempts class critique -- the smart are poor, the rich are dumb, and yet they buy their way to success through the pains of those who need money. The discourse-loving hipster-commentators may latch onto the film's surface jibe at the education system or the "good people" morality message. No, this is not something you bend yourself backwards to find depth; it's a page-turner, and an efficient one at that.
The sort-of ringleader of the exam-cheating scheme is Lynn (Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying). A brilliant student, she's miffed that the secondary school that gives her a scholarship also takes "tea money" -- a bribe all good Thai schools take from parents -- from her father. When classmates offer to pay her if she lets them copy her test answers, she takes it. Soon Lynn devises a mechanism to communicate her answers to several students at once, which sends her on a perilous path to become a young millionaire.
With Lynn as the godmother of all exams, no one around her seems interested in studying or at least in trying. You wonder if this is an exaggeration -- do not wonder, it is an exaggeration. The more legitimate question -- and I don't think the film gives a satisfying answer -- is why the bright kid is doing this. For money, yes, and to get back at the school, sure. But when Lynn takes it to another level by plotting a sophisticated cross-continental cheat with three friends (Eisaya Hosuwan, Teeradon Supapunpinyo and Chanon Santinatornkul) and trying to score several million baht, we probably need a clearer motive -- a drive so strong that pushes the innocent-looking girl to attempt something on the scale of The-Wolf-of-Wall-Street greed.
Maybe she's doing it just because she wants to prove she can. That, maybe, is more fascinating.
Nattawut overcomes this with sleight of hands. The director excels in TV commercial shorthand and he piles it on for the service of tension. The film's long sequence at an exam room in Sydney (Lynn's plan is send answers to her Thai customers, three hours before the Bangkok test due to time difference) is an ambitious set piece in which the breakdown of her action and movement maintains a gripping power. An academic test is the most boring activity on earth. The film's conceit is to turn it into a gladiatorial ring, a place of risk, wit and sublime deception. To achieve that, Nattawut relies on a full arsenal of visual tricks and editing precision -- and against the odds it works, minus the clumsy overacting of the Australian teacher right out of a bad horror film.
In his first feature film Countdown, also a thriller, Nattawut was too worried that the whole thing wouldn't be cool enough -- that film has a grave sin in the ending, where the moral high grounding upends the entire construct.
In Chalard Games Goeng, he has matured. Yes, the cool, New York-trained elements are still slightly annoying and the ending again hints at the impulse to preach.
But by that time, the film has done what it was conceived to do: to entertain. With Thai cinema in the doldrums, the hope is now pinned on Chalard Games Goeng to put some spark back. From the look of it, it will.
