The Monas mystery gold heist: Episode One
Why doesn’t Indonesian television produce local detective programs?
Instead of
banal sinetron following a predictable plot, viewers could pit their wits
against cunning sleuths battling vile villains across Southeast Asia’s Sin
City, home to 12 million stories.
The BBC has
been telecasting such programs since John Logie Baird first caught a cathode
ray. The US has never let go of the
genre. Nor has Hong Kong where kung fu
cops jump off 40 storey towers to chop up snakeheads..
So why no
Achmad of the Archipelago, a silat-master righting the wrongs, defending the
poor, confronting the corrupt? What an
arresting idea!
Maybe
there’s insufficient wrongdoing in the Republic to stimulate
scriptwriters? Methinks it safe to
eliminate that theory.
Could such
programs be haram? Negative: Goodies
always vanquish the baddies, though sometimes the two can be inseparable.
So here’s a few suggestions to get the creative juices haemorrhaging. First we need a hero.
Haji Sjahrit Holmes (I Gusti Ayu Puspawati ) of Jl Bond, disguised as a street musician deducts the obvious others have overlooked while giving his pipe a workout in the kampong. Tobacco sponsorship? Elementary, my dear Wayan.
Hamzah
Poirot promenading La Rue des Thamrin spots clues missed by the clumsy
gendarmerie, revealing the dominatrix in the Hyatt as the guilty one, not the
scowling satpam.
Nyonya
Marples would have no problem seeing the flaws in the alibis of a sinister
itinerant vendor poisoning the innocent with toxic bakso. (Is there any
other sort?) This would be The
Curious Case of the Kaki Lima.
Murder
on the Yogyakarta Express could have a cast of candidates, one wearing a yellow jacket, another
green and the third red. One goes
missing. The train gathers speed. It’s heading downhill. The guard has disappeared. The emergency lever doesn’t work. A metaphor
for the state of politics?
Not
interested? So how about a police
series: The Thick Khaki Line
could feature the gallant gumshoes of Precinct 13 covering the notorious
Tanjung Priok waterfront. The lads ensure nothing gets through without their
knowledge. And cut.
Too
British? Here’s an original idea –
let’s steal from the States.
The
Funda Mentalist
would have a bland, near mute actor (Nicholas Saputra) playing the role of a
psychic. He and his sidekick Fatima
(Alya Rohali) fetching in a blue burqa with matching sunglasses, dispenses with
old fashioned policing methods, like door knocking and DNA testing.
They solve
the crime in 38 minutes plus commercials just by looking mysterious. Should do well in superstitious Java.
There’s no
shortage of adaptable ideas to suit Indonesian tastes. The Modest City, (preserving Asian
values), The Touchables (story consultants - KPK), Irian Five-0
(“obscure, confused,” say critics) and BD (Big Durian) Confidential
(the smell says it all).
Ponder the
plotlines. It’s dawn at Matabukit
Police Station in an overcrowded, rubble-strewn industrial area known for its
sleaze. And that’s just the cops.
A man
rushes in, blowing a whistle, waking the duty sergeant. “The 50 kilograms of gold atop Monas has
been stolen,” he shouts, and is promptly arrested for disturbing the police.
What the
flatfoot doesn’t know is that the whistleblower has top contacts. Minutes later the phone rings. Within seconds the crimson-faced cop
releases the prisoner.
The man
then reveals himself as Jusuf Bond (Dude Harlino), famous foreign agent
assigned by Blok M (Christine Hakim) on the trail of the crim behind the Great
Monas Mystery.
Some
character tweaks would be required.
Yusuf’s tipple is three fingers of Teh Botol on ice. His favorite car is a custom-built black Kijang
with a bed in the back for kips during daylong traffic jams.
Pak Bond
only beds his wives, but being polygamous is allowed four. They always wear headscarves so their
tresses don’t tangle in helicopter blades while choppering over the
Presidential Palace or speed-boating down the Ciliwung. Proprieties must be
maintained.
Enough
imagining. Now it’s over to the TV
stations. Naysayers might argue that viewers aren’t ready yet for programs
featuring smart and honest police – the idea is just too fantastic.
Far more
believable to the poor are the antics of the rotten and restless in
millionaires’ mansions. Duncan
Graham
(First published in The Sunday Post 26 August 2012)
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