KUALA LUMPUR: Having been involved in the movie industry for more than 40 years, director and producer, Datuk Yusof Haslam, a name synonymous with police dramas and films, described his latest offering, titled ‘Sheriff’, as the most honest work he has ever produced.
Highlighting the dark side of the world of policing, the chairman of Skop Productions Sdn Bhd (Skop Productions), who is also the movie’s co-executive producer, said that the openness of the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM), by giving the green light in the making of the film directed by his son, Shafiq Yusof, has smoothed the production process.
“In the production of previous police movies and dramas, every script was evaluated by the police. (In the past) it was not possible to show the dark side (of the police force), and the script had to be changed.
“The storyline of this film is different from what I’ve done before; it’s not like those years when I produced ‘Gerak Khas’, where we could digest the message ourselves,” he said, at the gala night of the movie, last night.
Yusof, the man who produced the ‘Gerak Khas’ drama series since 1999, also described the production of ‘Sheriff’, starring actors Zul Ariffin, Syafiq Kyle, Datuk Aaron Aziz, Azira Shafinaz and Elizabeth Tan, as one of the paradigm shifts in the production of local action films.
Meanwhile, the film’s director, Shafiq, described the RM6 million action thriller as the most challenging to produce, after the ‘KL Special Force’ (2018), ‘Abang Long Fadil’ (2014) and ‘Polis Evo 3’ (2023), as the new outing took 81 days to film.
Syafiq also dedicated the work to his father, for being an important individual in contributing the original idea.
“I see that this film is very important for him, having been involved in making films for over 40 years; every night I see him writing a police story... so I asked him what other police story he wants to do, he said the theme is integrity; from there I developed it, but this is ultimately his movie,” he said.
‘Sheriff’, co-produced by Skop Productions and Astro Shaw, features a new concept, which is rarely presented in local works, called ‘reverse whodunnit’ (better known as ‘howcatchem’), in which the guilty party and the crime are openly revealed to the audience, except for the part how he will be caught.
It tells the story of Nazri, a police officer from the Narcotics Department, played by Syafiq Kyle, who is desperate to foil Tony Ifrit’s (Aaron Aziz) drug syndicate, which is becoming more widespread after Tony escapes from punishment.
At the same time, the ‘Sheriff’ (played by Zul Ariffin), from the Integrity Department, was sent by Bukit Aman to solve the ‘Meth Killer’ case, and he was assigned with Nazri to be working under one department.
‘Sheriff’ will be screened at local and Singapore cinemas, starting tomorrow (April 18).
