The Siege at Thorn High Review: Joko Anwar’s First Non-Horror Feature in Six Years Misses the Mark, Despite its Potentially Intriguing Premise and Gritty Action Set Pieces

I came across The Siege at Thorn High on Prime Video, not knowing there was a new Joko Anwar movie had landed on the streaming platform. Originally titled Pengepungan Di Bukit Duri in Indonesia, where it was first released theatrically back in April, Anwar’s latest movie marks a refreshing change of pace that moves away from his usual horror territory in favour of a dystopian action thriller. The last time he directed a non-horror feature was the superhero film Gundala in 2019.

Inspired by the real-life events of the May 1998 Indonesia riots that rocked the nation at the time, The Siege at Thorn High gets off to a gripping start during the pre-title stretch, beginning with the introduction of three students: Edwin (Theo Camillo Taslim), his sister Silvi (Sheila Kusnadi) and their friend Panca (Bima Azriel).

Following a riot that breaks out all over the city, the class is cancelled, and every student must head straight back home. What follows next is a violent encounter that ends with a brutal assault resulting from an angry mob since Edwin and Silvi are Chinese Indonesians. They have been the target of racism stemming from deep-rooted hatred, with the Chinese-Indonesians being labelled as “pigs”.

Eighteen years after the 2009 tragedy, the now-adult Edwin (Morgan Oey) is taking up a job as a substitute teacher to teach art at SMA Duri (Thorn High), an East Jakarta school filled with troubled students. One of them is Jefri a.k.a. Jef (Omara N. Esteghlal), who particularly despises Edwin. From there, Edwin makes friends with fellow teacher Diana (Hana Pitrashata Malasan) and somehow takes an interest in Khristo (Endy Arfian), who is part of Jef’s gang but possesses a natural talent for drawing. Anwar, who also wrote the screenplay, takes his time telling the story. We learn that Edwin has his reason to find his missing nephew, who belongs to his late sister.

And if you’re wondering about the title that carries The Siege at Thorn High, it only takes place around the halfway mark. Before that? Viewers have to sit through a long stretch of surprisingly uninvolving moments of Edwin and Jef engaged in their verbal feuds every now and then. Not to mention the rest of his time spent trying to get to know more about Khristo.

Although the ongoing story still has news reporting about the racial riots that erupted in the city, it serves more as a backdrop to reflect while zeroing in on the act of hate and contempt between Edwin and Jef. The latter is a bully who has a grudge against the Chinese Indonesians. Edwin happens to be one of them, and Jef’s hatred cuts even deeper after a later incident.

It’s kind of baffling that the introduction of Jef is only given a perfunctory character arc, where the director depicts his role filled with detest and anger without delving deep beyond the surface level. The same also goes for Edwin, whose victim mentality still lingers in his subconscious even after years since the unforgettable tragedy that happened to his sister and parents.

His arc could have been subtly handled to see how he would handle his past trauma and grow as a person over time. Too bad his character is mostly portrayed as passive-aggressive — a result that occasionally frustrates me over his decisions in some scenes. At one point, the movie reveals that he can defend himself with his martial arts skills.

But then, when the titular siege finally takes place, the movie struggles to ratchet up the tension where it is supposed to. Instead, Anwar chooses to stall the momentum by spending significant time with Edwin trying to reason with Jef and his gang, leading to questionable moments that leave me wondering whether it was forcefully done for the sake of injecting a so-called dramatic urgency.

The movie, which runs for two hours, stretches unnecessarily longer, evidently in its sluggish midsection, and the erratic stretch occurs during the siege at the school. The on-and-off reasoning between Edwin and Jef in his attempt to prevent violence gets repetitive after a while. Then, there’s Edwin’s mission of finding his missing nephew, which feels more like an afterthought rather than something integral to the storytelling. By the time the part with the missing nephew turns up again, here is where the story falters with a perplexing plot point that I find it hard to believe upon seeing it.

As an action thriller, the movie has its visceral moments with Anwar channelling The Raid-style graphic violence and brutality during Edwin’s fight against Jef and his gang. Too bad the well-choreographed action set pieces and the promising prologue, using the racial riots as a jumping-off point to tell a potentially intriguing story, only fizzle out as the movie progresses.

The Siege at Thorn High is currently streaming on Prime Video.