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Issue #12 December 6, 2013
the world to seek revenge, the film feels detached from any notion of his potential trauma. This creates a distance from caring about the brutish Joe who is ready to fight, scream and wail in fits of pain and sorrow as if on cue. Yes, he was a bad father and misses his daughter—but really, what defines the man who has nothing?
Park Chan-wook’s film was a portrait of a monster trying to be human through redemption: Vengeance became the expression of inner turmoil, while suffering surfaced through Oh Dae-su’s (Choi Min-sik) desperate pleas to repair the brokenness of his life. Oh Dae-su’s inner monologues were poetic in how they conveyed his vulnerability. However, tragedy does not pulse through Lee’s film as it did in the original—which quaked in moments—and at times it’s hard to find a beat or even a reading on the emotional complexities that the characters seemingly possess.
With nods to the original film and violence and blood splattering here and there, Lee’s take becomes amusing when it tries to appropriate components of Park’s film. Most of the film follows a detective bent to the plot with Joe and newfound friend Marie (Elizabeth Olsen) searching for answers, but there is no sense of tension or what’s at stake. For Oh Dae-su, his soul and sanity were on the line. Here, remorse doesn’t shape Joe’s desires, and this doesn’t lead to his absolution.
Sharlto Copley’s Adrian Pryce, the sadistic and ruthless schemer, is poised, creepy and ridiculous. Ultimately, Joe must answer to him and witness the twists that unveil through the past. It’s as if the whole film has been staged to allow Joe his catharsis—there’s no weight to his collapse, though there are slight modifications to the twist—but winds up leaving things feeling too tidy in the end.
Spike Lee’s remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy bears a resemblance through its premise and shape, but the light of what made the original so striking makes this iteration a shadow bound to fade in a greater legacy. Lee’s Oldboy is the attempted cover of a well-loved song, and although the effort may be earnest, the outcome feels recycled. What then comes together is a compost of exaggerated violence and shock value that leaves the film with no life of its own.
Josh Brolin (True Grit, 2010, Milk, 2009, No Country for Old Men, 2008) plays Joe Doucett, an alcoholic advertising executive who neglects his ex-wife and young daughter and winds up imprisoned in a mock hotel room, only to be released 20 years later in order to discover why. Joe’s experience in the room flashes by—with the television being an indication of time passing—but any sense of claustrophobia and chaos are only touched upon as if going through a checklist.
There’s no impression that Joe’s isolation damages his psyche as he develops his determination, and even when he goes out into the world to seek revenge, the film feels detached from any notion of his potential trauma. This creates a distance from caring about the brutish Joe who is ready to fight, scream and wail in fits of pain and sorrow as if on cue. Yes, he was a bad father and misses his daughter—but really, what defines the man who has nothing?
Park Chan-wook’s film was a portrait of a monster trying to be human through redemption: Vengeance became the expression of inner turmoil, while suffering surfaced through Oh Dae-su’s (Choi Min-sik) desperate pleas to repair the brokenness of his life. Oh Dae-su’s inner monologues were poetic in how they conveyed his vulnerability. However, tragedy does not pulse through Lee’s film as it did in the original—which quaked in moments—and at times it’s hard to find a beat or even a reading on the emotional complexities that the characters seemingly possess.