There are classics of the horror genre, speaking in terms of movies, that are all about the creatures: Bela Legosi’s Dracula, Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster, Lon Chaney’s Wolfman and so on. Some horror stories move away from such “creature features” and opt for a more cerebral experience, inspired as they are by the works of Edgar Allen Poe or HP Lovecraft. These tales take it upon themselves to explore the inhumanity amongst our fellow man be that inhumanity inspired by simple madness or cosmic horrors. In The Mouth of Madness tries to be both, drawing inspiration from Lovecraft and directed by John Carpenter, helmsman of the 1982 sci-fi/horror classic The Thing.
When we meet John Trent, he’s in an asylum. Asked for his story, he relates that he was once an insurance investigator. A claim has been filed by Arcane Publishing against popular horror author Sutter Cane over the last novel in his bestselling series. After evading an attempt of Cane’s agent to axe-murder him, Trent takes the case, reads all of Cane’s work up to that mysterious final book and begins having nightmares. With the help of Cane’s editor, Linda, he manages to find the fictional New Hampshire town Cane used as a backdrop for his stories, and soon finds himself drawn into the mad novelist’s world to follow a sequence of events that may doom ours.
The material and feel of In The Mouth of Madness draw their fuel from the burning coals of many a Lovecraft story, but it’s hard not to notice the parallels with Stephen King. The fictional town of Hobb’s End into which our heroes stumble at first seems like a sleepy, friendly little place, but is soon consumed with madness and paranoia. The film, however, does not actually copy any particular character, event or story element from any of its contemporaries or inspirations, focusing instead on overarching themes and a mood of creeping dread. “Focus”, however, may be a strong word, because In The Mouth of Madness is kind of all over the place.
I happen to think Sam Neill is underappreciated. He’s brilliant in this.
As much as I appreciate movies that take pokes at the rabid behavior of certain subsets of genre fans, it was hard for me to be drawn into the story. Any time an atmosphere of dread seemed to be creeping in, a monster of one form or another would pop into the frame, if just for a moment, aimed at startling both the characters and the audience. Many of the good ideas in the plot – the madness caused by Cane’s books, the manifestation of the fictional town, the Lovecraftian ancient creatures bent on returning to Earth – are lost with the presence of one slavering grotesque leaping out at us going “ARE YOU SCARED YET?” after another. It’s disappointing as well as somewhat counter-productive.
Creature features are very different from deeper, psychological horror. When you watch, say, Bram Stoker’s Dracula or The Wolfman, you’re there for the lurid drama and a spattering of gore. Silence of the Lambs or Seven, on the other hand, is meant to invoke dark thoughts and feelings in a somewhat quiet way, their characters and actions very rooted in the real while being disturbingly abnormal. In The Mouth of Madness wants it both ways. In the end, it ends up being neither particularly introspective nor all that scary.
This scene had me laughing, not screaming, my head off.
This is a shame, as there are some interesting ideas at work. The fact that Cane’s novels inspire slaving mobs and axe-wielding agents could have sparked a discussion or investigation into the affect of media consumption on the populace. The town appearing out of nowhere from the pages of a book may have served an examination of the theory that worlds created by fiction do, in fact, exist somewhere. Even the movie’s attempt to transcend into a state of meta-awareness falls a bit flat due to the overwrought nature of its jump-out scares and unfocused narrative. It could be argued that this schizophrenic form of filmmaking is meant as an example of what schizophrenia itself might feel like, but even that explanation is flawed given the overall incoherency of the work. You may want to say something profound, but your meaning will be lost if all that comes out of your mouth is gibberish.
While I can’t say it’s a total failure, In The Mouth of Madness is neither an effective creature feature nor a true psychological horror. It relies too heavily on prosthetics and spook house slight-of-hand while not quite approaching the level of surrealism that makes surrealist works like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or Bad Lieutanant: Port of Call – New Orleans enjoyable and understandable to watch while still being batshit bonkers. Still, Sam Neill is a lot of fun to watch as he spirals out of reality and into his own little corner of Crazy Town, so if I were to recommend In The Mouth of Madness, it would be for an evening of MST3K-style fun with friends, rather than actually watching it for the sake of horror. You’ll probably get a much more palpable scare out of actually reading one of Lovecraft’s stories or, failing that, some horror-based fan fiction. Though that sort of thing is terrifying for entirely different reasons, especially when it manages to sell and someone starts making movies out of it. I’m not naming names. To do so would be to invite its attention. And those fans? They never sleep. They. Never. Sleep.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
I had originally planned this for no other reason than the sake of novelty. I am, after all, not the only small-time Internet movie critic consistently cranking out reviews for the benefits of whomever takes the time to read my words. I have a Canadian counterpart (no, not my wife), who goes by the handle ‘Marter’ and can be found reviewing movies as often as he can at Box Office Boredom. Since we both toil in the somewhat dank Internet basement clubhouse that is the Escapist user forums, I thought it might be keen to collaborate on a review. He agreed, and for our work I selected Edward Zwick’s 2003 historical epic The Last Samurai.
The year is 1877. While the United States continues to recover from its civil war, the nation of Japan is undergoing sweeping social change. Resisting this change are the samurai, the warrior caste whose ancient traditions are threatened by the onset of a modern age. To assist in bringing these men and women to heel, Japan conscripts Captain Nathan Algren, a so-called expert at dealing with and relating to native cultures. In this case, it meant helping a tribe of Native Americans let their guard down long enough for his superior officer to ride in with their cavalry unit and kill everybody. Bitter, nihilistic and half in a bottle, Algren takes the job just for something to do, and ends up captured and isolated by the rebellion’s leader, Katsumoto, a learned man of both word and sword who may well be the last true samurai left in Japan.
So much for the synopsis. Our review of this film has been broken into five sections: Plot, Characters, Cinematography/Mise-en-scène, Actors and Fun Factor. Let’s get started with Marter’s take on…
Plot
The plot of The Last Samurai worked well for me, even if it might have meandered a bit too long watching Tom Cruise sitting there and observing the samurai culture. It also takes a while to get going, with Cruise’s character’s alcoholism kind of coming and going whenever it was convenient. After the first day in the samurai culture, it disappears after he’s denied his saki. That’s fine, but after being released, he’s offered whiskey from the businessmen. He refuses, presumably because he kicked the habit. He even claimed that he’s finally been able to sleep peacefully. But only about 5 or 10 minutes later, he’s saying “I need a drink.” Why?
Oh, and let’s not forget the random ninja attack. It was like director Edward Zwick thought “Hey, they might be getting boring. Let’s have a random action scene!” Sure, it was explained, but not very well, and then it’s never brought up again. I mean, it serves a function and it brings some of the characters together, but making it have some sort of relevance would have been much nicer.
The beginning scene also didn’t quite work for me. It showed us how far this soldier had fallen, but if he was willing to fall that far, more or less giving up hope in human life, why would he accept a lot of work just for some money. Opening this way shows his character doesn’t care too much about his life, or the money he can get, and makes me question why he’d take the $500 a month to teach people how to kill other people.
Most of the plot worked well, though. Despite the film lasting over 150 minutes long, I had no problem sitting through it because there was a lot to take in, and there was always something new happening. I wasn’t bored, and even if there wasn’t a random ninja attack, I don’t think I would have had a problem going over an hour without a real action scene. Watching the life of the samurai, like what I assume happened with Cruise’s character, was interesting to me. I was fine sitting there and simply observing.
Personally, it struck me a bit as Dances with Wolves in Japan. When I first saw the film it felt like a win/win. Dances with Wolves was a deeply affecting piece and I’m a sucker for the history, culture and fables of a land like Japan. However, in retrospect I can’t help but feel there’s been a little glossing over and touching up of some things in places when it comes to an actual portrayal of life during the Meiji era.
I feel what’s missing is the atmosphere of uncertainty. For the most part, Katsumoto (Watanabe) is absolutely sure his rebellion will ultimately serve the Emperor and strengthen his country, while his enemies are absolutely sure their modern way of life will prevail over the ‘barbarians’ who were once universally revered, respected and feared. In a time when nobody was sure what the future would hold, seeing things painted so starkly in black and white dilutes the emotional impact of the experience.
Still, Katsumoto’s desire to resist change for the good of his people’s heritage rings true and is enough to drive the plot outside of Algren’s growth as a human being. The time dilation that occurs can be a bit off-putting, as Marter mentioned, but the scope of the film and the way Zwick shoots it (more on that later) ensures we as the audience are aware of how sweeping the tale is in its scope. It makes a worthy attempt at being an affecting historical tragedy but never reaches the lofty heights of the Greeks or Shakespeare. The lack of moral ambiguity is probably the biggest Achilles heel this movie has plot wise, but it’s not enough to cripple it.
Honestly, I think the beard works for Cruise.
Characters
I’ve sort of touched upon this already, but I felt like Cruise’s character was inconsistent, mostly acting however the plot dictated. Is he an alcoholic for the entire time, or does the samurai life clear him of that? Does he hate all humans, or does he just hate himself? Is he suicidal, or is he not? None of these things are made especially clear, regardless of what the storyline tells us.
He develops though, mostly just as he switches sides from the government to being a samurai. So at least there’s that. Watanabe’s character doesn’t really develop at all. He’s the same at the beginning as he is at the end, with the only difference being that he finished his poem. Wow, that’s a lot of character development there. None of the secondary characters got either depth or development, although that didn’t bother me too much, as we didn’t need to make the film more cumbersome than it already is.
While Katsumoto doesn’t really have an arc the way Algren does, that doesn’t necessarily mean the character’s dull. Is an old tiger dull just because it’s old? We see Katsumoto knowing what he does may end his life at any time, and his willingness to face death, at least his own. The deaths of others, however, have more of an effect on him. One of the film’s best scenes comes when his carefully-crafted mask of tranquility is shattered by someone getting fatally wounded. I won’t say who or when, but trust me that it’s an example of a great deal of emotion and depth being conveyed without a single word.
The one-dimensionality of the other characters does indeed keep burdens to a minimum as the story progresses and ties in to that lack of moral ambiguity I mentioned. There are no real surprises when it comes to the allegiances or motivations of people, making the overall story feel like a duet between Algren and Katsumoto with everybody else playing instruments in the backing band. But at least those two are decent characters, even if Algren seems a bit inconsistent at times. He also, thank the Maker, never becomes a “magical white person”, solving all of the problems of his poor minority friends simply by being there or making a speech. During the final battle he does play a role but never becomes a major factor, and in the aftermath maintains his place as an observer and narrator rather than a firebrand or symbol. He drives home the point of Katsumoto’s rebellion, but in the end seems somewhat superfluous to the actual historical events. To be honest, I like that.
Better that than him rallying Japan to remember its traditions the way a white person is sometimes shown as making a black person a better football player or being responsible for a civil rights movement.
Cinematography/Mise-en-scène
I felt like I was in Japan in the 1800’s. Nothing made it seem more modern, which is always a good thing. If the film felt more modern — even if it was done in certain times for the government to highlight how they’re more technologically advanced — I think it would have broken the immersion tha the film tries to bring to the table. But there wasn’t anything distracting like that, and as a result, I didn’t have any problem with the way the film was built on a staging level.
The battle scenes, unfortunately, might have been the low points of the film. It’s not that they’re not well-made, because I think they were, but because they just didn’t particularly fit with the rest of the film, which is a slow-paced drama. The first scene, where the military is slaughtered, is not particularly interesting because we’ve yet to have enough time to care about anyone involved, especially in regards to the enemy. But luckily, it’s short and then it takes a while for another battle to be fought.
I must again respectfully disagree, with regards to the first battle. While we really don’t care much about anybody outside of Algren, and even so only in passing at that point, the sight of the samurai in full armor riding hard out of the mist gives them an eerieness that works very well, in my opinion. It’s obvious to me why the newly-crafted Japanese army breaks at the sight of them. As is explained to Algren, most of those men grew up hearing tales of the samurai and being in awe of their power and honor. And then, like specters of the past, they’re coming directly at you, screaming like banshees and carrying deadly weapons. It’s a psychological tactic that works beautifully and speaks to Katsumoto’s craftiness in battle strategy, not to mention making for a great shot.
Going back to a previous point, though, the ninja attack is probably the “low point” of the film for me. With the exception of two moments I can think of, nothing particularly interesting happens either story-wise or in terms of shot composition. As Marter mentioned, it’s pretty much just Zwick saying, “Have some ninjas, guys!” Sure, sending assassins after Katsumoto makes sense, but what is this, G.I. Joe?
Pretty much any scene with these two in it is a good one.
Actors
Cruise and Watanabe are the two more prominently featured actors here. I’ve never actually had a problem with Cruise — offset problems aside — and I think he made a convincing war veteran. Watanabe was more the star though, and I would have liked to see more from him. He clearly understood exactly what was needed from his role, and as a result, he seemed to be fully immersed in his character. Supporting and thankless roles go to Tony Goldwyn, Masato Harada, Timothy Spall and Koyuki.
I agree completely. Tom Cruise all but disappears into his role and it makes the rest of the film better. There are a couple moments early on when he might be overdoing it a bit with the way his character is ‘tortured’, but looking past that we find a performance that conveys Algren’s arc in an earnest, very human manner. He truly brought his A game, which is a good thing because Watanabe shows he is fully capable of blowing less talented actors completely out of the water. The aforementioned death of another character is all but perfect in its presentation and Watanabe absolutely nails it. As I said, this really comes down to a duet between these two characters, and the way the actors play it makes their conversations the highlights of the film.
Fun Factor
Did I enjoy The Last Samurai? Even if it didn’t always seem like a consistent effort that made complete sense, I did. Like I said when talking about the plot, I was rarely, if ever, bored, and I was captivated for most of the time it was playing. Learning the culture of the samurai, even if not completely accurate, was very involving for me, and when the film concluded, I felt like I had learned something even if I hadn’t. It’s an immersive experience that definitely held my interest. While I didn’t always feel as if the battle scenes fit, on their own, they worked well and were exciting. You might not think that a gun vs. sword battle would be entertaining, but you would be wrong in that assumption. I simply had fun with this film. Enough fun, in fact, to forgive some of the things that I didn’t think worked quite right.
In spite of its historical inconsistencies and a few moments that push the melodrama almost to the point of absurdity, The Last Samurai never feels less than sincere in its sentiments and presentation. It may not always work as intended and you may have trouble shaking the feeling that Zwick is trying really hard to remake Glory, but historical war stories are his bailiwick and this one isn’t bad at all. Between the lush cinematography, the interesting historical aspects of the story and the powerful performances of the two leads, it’s safe to say both Marter and I recommend The Last Samurai.
However, when you look up what actually happened in Japan during the Meiji Restoration, from the actual number of samurai to the way the Japanese were using their Western ‘experts’, you may get a little bit angry at the aforementioned inconsistencies. I don’t think this necessarily detracts from the performances or cinematography, but nevertheless, consider yourselves warned.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
In 1990, American film audiences were clearly craving action films like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon over the ultra-macho likes of First Blood, Commando and the works of Charlie Bronson and Chuck Norris. Even in the groundbreaking days that set new standards for such entertainment, women were rarely more than plot devices that motivated our heroes. A little French film called Nikita, released in the U.S. with La Femme attached, would go about as far from the quasi-patriotic antics of the aforementioned muscle-bound men as you could get, and even today, the results are something else.
Nikita is a street tough and drug addict, and her fellow gang members break into a drug store to help her get a fix. When the cops show up, a deadly shootout ensues. Nikita basically sits it out, and when a cop approaches her, she shoots him in the head, killing him. Tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison, Nikita is instead given an injection she’s told will be lethal. When she wakes up, she’s in an austere room and told she has a choice: she can occupy the grave that now is marked with her name, or she can submit to government training to become an assassin. She agrees to the training, and in the course of it emerges from the shell of a street tough into a new form of a beautiful, poised, polite and deadly young woman. Her training is hard, but her most difficult challenge does not emerge until long after it is complete: she meets and falls in love with a grocery store clerk who knows nothing about her past and gives her his heart without question.
There are stories that deal with the dehumanizing element of assassination, and how professionals can objectify the subjects of their work and, by extension, everyone and everything around them. La Femme Nikita goes one step further and encourages us to think of what it might take to rehumanize someone. First the grungy, caustic, drug-addled punk is transformed into a lethal killing machine in a cocktail dress and heels, and then again from there into a woman experiencing love, tenderness and trust for the first time. It’s a violent and contemporary take on Pygmalion and The Taming of the Shrew, and the roots in these classics are quite evident even as it grows beyond them.
She’ll make the bastards pay for the runs in her stockings.
Central to its success is the performance of Anne Parillaud as Nikita. The ways in which she changes with the atmosphere and motion of the film are stunning. When we first meet her, she’s so driven, withdrawn and violent that it’s hard to recognize her as anything but an belligerent urchin. Yet this same person sits in front of a mirror, being gently told what it is to be a woman, and it’s like she transforms before our very eyes. She’s poised, polite and focused instead of spastic, wild and ungrateful. And then, when she meets Marco, another change happens. She becomes vulnerable, uncertain and even a bit confused by things like earnest sweetness and unconditional love. Parillaud pulls off all of these changes with sublime grace and makes Nikita mesmerizing to watch from start to finish.
This film was one of the first by Luc Besson, the man who’d go on to give us The Professional and The Fifth Element. Even in this early work, we see him perform a great balancing act between clean, no-frills action shooting and somewhat crazy subject matter. It’s also the second time we see him working with Jean Reno, before the pair would team up for The Professional based on the character Reno plays in Nikita. Despite the occasional explosion, there’s no real sense of bombast or unnecessary melodrama here. The performances are nuanced enough to convey emotion and intent without any scenery needing to be chewed.
“I clean.”
La Femme Nikita was the first real “girl with a gun” action movie to hit the mainstream, paving the way for women to take center stage in films and series where men would usually be in the lead. The film itself spawned an inferior American remake, Point of No Return, and a couple TV series of its own. But the original stands out because of the performance of the leading lady, the aplomb of its director and the truly heartfelt way in which its story comes to be told. And, thankfully, Netflix Instant gives us the original French dialog with subtitles instead of dubbing it. I highly recommend this one.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
‘Crime drama’ is a pretty broad spectrum for stories. Some are from the perspective of those on the people’s side of the law, following detectives and prosecutors in their pursuit of justice. Others give us the point of view of the individual criminal, from the ones trying to rise above a life of crime to those wallowing in it. They range from gritty realism to stylized flights of fancy, but there’s something about Gangster No. 1 that refuses to be pinned down to any side of the story save that of our protagonist.
Said protagonist remains nameless throughout the story much like his cousin in Matthew Vaughn’s seminal and stylish Layer Cake, and is recruited back in 1968 by up-and-coming crime boss Freddie Mays. Our hero looks up to Freddie in a big way, but when it seems Freddie has more affection of a nightclub singer than his new right-hand man, jealousy rears its ugly head. Circumstances fall together for the young gangster to get Freddie out of his way and become the big dog in the London yards, and he rules over a mighty criminal empire until, over 30 years later, Freddie returns from his imprisonment. A reunion is clearly in order.
One of the best things Gangster No. 1 has going for it is the clear influence of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. With Malcolm McDowell as the older iteration of the Gangster, and Paul Bettany excellently pulling off the glower from behind lowered eyebrows that Malcolm himself made famous, we’re reminded quite clearly of the film that gave us ‘a bit of the old ultra-violence’. And this movie certainly doesn’t shrink from the heavy stuff. Indeed, one of the best sequences in it involves a particularly brutal and thorough murder from the perspective of the victim, which tells us much more about the Gangster than any words ever could.
“Totally cool with you dating that chick, bro.”
This is a man driven mad with desires. He came from nowhere and wanted everything he saw. He didn’t just look up to Freddie Mays, he wanted to be Freddie Mays. More than once, we get the impression that the Gangster is struggling with feelings of romantic love for Mays, while at the same time he longs to oust Mays and take his place. This is why he seems so tortured when he’s taking his time to kill the rival crime lord who set about assassinating Freddie: the rival cause Freddie pain, he beat the Gangster to the punch, and he doesn’t dress or live anywhere near as well. The Gangster is out to prove his worth, that he is better than any other lawbreaker running around London, and he’ll leave a trail of bloody, broken bodies to do it without a shred of guilt or even a moment’s second thought.
It must be said that without McDowell’s sour, profanity-laced narration and Bettany’s silent, edgy intensity, this character study would fall completely flat. But thanks to the efforts of these two actors the movie functions quite well for what it is. The best scene is probably between Bettany and Saffron Burrows, the girl who “stole” Freddie from the Gangster. When she crosses the line and spits in the face of this cold-blooded, half-mad killer, Bettany’s face gives us an unflinching look at the anger and insanity writhing around in this character. Yet, he composes himself, without breaking eye contact, manages to smile and conveys wishes that would seem genuine, apologetic and heartfelt if it weren’t for the icy rage we’d seen moments ago. It’s a fantastic bit of acting that stands out among the rest of the film’s scenes.
Why is Professor Lupin being such a complete jerk?
The problems with Gangster No. 1 come down to tone and pacing. It never seems to decide for certain if it wants to be a mix of character drama and comedy like a Guy Ritchie film or a pure hard-nosed crime tragedy like Scarface. Elements of both are clearly present along with the aforementioned Clockwork Orange but it feels a bit like director Paul McGuigan went to a buffet where all of these options were available and tried to cram his plate with as much as he could from each one. It never becomes an actual mess, but also never finds its own voice amongst these influences. It also seems to accelerate a bit too much in places, as if once past the major turning points in the Gangster’s formative years it just wants to get us to the end. As for the ending, I won’t give anything away, but part of me was slightly unsatisfied with its neatness. Call me crazy, but I was expecting things to be a bit messier.
The director’s later work, Lucky Number Slevin and Push, had a better time with tone and pace, but Gangster No. 1 still gives us clean shots of excellent actors working with good story elements. I do feel there are better movies I’ve mentioned that can satisfy a craving for gritty criminal comedy or unflinching views into the underworld, and our villain protagonist doesn’t quite have the necessary pathos for us to be completely won over by him. He comes close, especially when we see how much unresolved emotion there is inside of him for Freddie, but it feels like too little too late. A little more time, perhaps elements of holding onto that duality of admiration and jealous, would have fleshed it out more and maybe left the ending a bit more satisfying for me. It never quite rises to the point of being more than the sum of its parts, but some of those parts are excellent enough for me to recommend Gangster No. 1 as an addition to any crime, noir or character-driven Netflix queue selection.
Especially if you’re a fan of British slang, or those mirror dresses club girls wore back in the 60s. Pretty groovy stuff.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
There’s an old French proverb that tells us “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” Can you just leave it out in the open, though? No, of course not, it will rot and small animals will make off with it if that were the case. Such urges are bottled up, kept deep inside, for the right moment to release their dark and depraved impulses upon the world. Cautionary tales like Moby Dick teach us to be careful how far our thirst for vengeance takes us, while those like The Count of Monte Christo show us the magnificent lengths to which the truly driven can go to exact their revenge. Oldboy does both.
Oh Dea-Su is a middle management worker and a bit of a drunkard on his way home to his wife and daughter after a run-in with the local cops. He is plucked from the street in a moment his friend is looking in another direction. He is thrown into a small room, barely a studio apartment, with a locked and heavily fortified door featuring only a small slot for meals. He has a TV, desk, bathroom facilities and writing implements. This is his home for 15 years. Then, one day, he is mysteriously released, given new clothes and a few clues, and given 5 days to sort out who locked him up and why. He’s been gassed, dragged around, poked, prodded and who knows what else. Nobody’s spoken to him in 15 years. As you can imagine, he is… a little upset.
Director Park Chan-Wook lists Alfred Hitchcock as one of his key influences. The construction of this film shows that in nearly every frame. Composition and angles are so precise and pitch-perfect for a given scene, and no shot goes on for a moment longer than it needs to. It reminded me a bit of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, replacing the espionage and mistaken identity themes with a need for vengeance so all-consuming it verges on complete madness. Much like last month’s Hannibal Lecter, we are shown creatures that, after so many years of torment and loss, can only barely be considered human. They look like us, move like us, even talk like us at times… but there is something very wrong, here.
Totally still a human being.
Underscoring the disturbing things that lurk in human skin that we see in Oldboy, we also see quite a bit of visceral harm done to human bodies. Like the view of the human soul, the sight of the violence is unflinching. However, this is not to say that it’s gratuitous. On the contrary, in the vein of both Hitchcock and Hannibal Lecter, or at least Silence of the Lambs, the violence drives home the point of the story instead of existing for its own sake. The lulls between the violence also serve a purpose. When we see Oh Dea-Su staring straight ahead, saying nothing, we know the sort of beast he’s become is lurking just beneath the surface, all too eager to lash out at anything in his path.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing of all about the central character in Oldboy is that he begins as a thoroughly ordinary man. You’ve probably seen or worked with or even befriended people like him in the course of your life. Fifteen years in captivity makes him nearly unrecognizable. This ordinary man is twisted and pressed and pushed into becoming something different, something at once far more dangerous and far more diminished. He can perpetuate all sorts of chaos yet holds onto his humanity by the slimmest of threads. And it could be any one of us.
Do I make a hammer time joke? Or say that the director nailed it? Decisions, decisions…
Fascinating, disturbing, at times funny and others soberingly heart-wrenching, Oldboy is a masterpiece of a suspense film. It’s psychological aspects dig quite deep, its thriller beats never fail to deliver and its cast never feels unnatural or over-the-top in their performances. It’s dark storytelling at its most basic and very finest all at once. While at times its violence and events feel like something from another world, it’s so grounded in its setting and characters that not only could this happen to any normal human being, it could be happening right now. There’s an immediacy to it, an intimacy, that gets right into your head and sits there daring you to take a closer look at what it’s saying. Don’t let the violence, the foreign language or the occasionally manic oddness of Oldboy put you off. If you’re at all interested in film-making, psychological suspense or a stripped-down unflinching examination of some very dark corners of the human condition, this is the film you’ve been waiting for.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
