I'm stuck in a motel room!

Oldboy

(2013)

(SPOILERS) I’m not averse to remakes so long someone has a good reason for going there. Generally, I wouldn’t regard “It was in a foreign language” as a valid motive. Just occasionally however, even a straight retelling can provide the lazy distraction of a different-but-the-same iteration, although one invariably ends up reaching the same conclusion; why did they bother? Most of non-English language films picked by Hollywood for a remake fail at the box office, and yet the lesson is never learned. If there’s a whiff of a name property, even from a somewhat insular bean counter standpoint, something with any chance of audience recognition, that’s enough. I seem to be in the minority with regard to the original Oldboy, as it didn’t do very much for me. Some bravura sequences and a compelling premise aside, I was became increasingly disenchanted as it became progressively more ridiculous and hysterical (and not as in funny) during the final act. It doesn’t surprise it took the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, as it’s just the sort of material an excitable Quentin Tarantino would fall for hook, line, and sinker. Consequently, my lack of veneration probably left me at least vaguely open to someone else’s take; perhaps the issues I had would be approached differently? That someone, after many fall starts, turned out to be Spike Lee. He makes a few cosmetic changes, but ironically (given how wired Park Chan-wook’s movie is) the sombre, disengaged, tone proves to be OIdboy 2013’s undoing, further underlining just how unlikely and far-fetched the scenario is. And with that, the fundamental intention, the emotional punch line, is swept away.

Lee at least warrants the benefit of the doubt. The released movie is not his preferred version, as producers lopped off 35 minutes against his wishes. It’s possible that in its unexpurgated form it’s a really good movie, and that the pacing really clicks. But his Oldboy seems long and listless as it is, unable to find its groove. Additionally, a longer edit wouldn’t fix core problems with the narrative. I suppose there might be an element where it’s explained that hypnosis has been used used to ensure Joe (Josh Brolin) and Marie (Elizabeth Olsen) fall in love… But that’s a wholly unpersuasive element of the original movie; I suppose it at lease evidences the makers were aware of the disconnect in their plot, but mostly it shows they had no idea how to make sense of it. Here, Joe and Marie fall for each other through an engineered coincidence, and we’re asked to swallow the idea that the rampantly affected Adrian (Sharlto Copley, whose performance kicks and strains against the dour tone while being simultaneously quite uncompelling) brought his plan to fruition by cajoling her through a troubled foster environment.

We don’t believe it for a second, and it makes the climax all the more misconceived and dismissable. If, rather than breaking down and begging for death/Adrian not to tell Marie, Joe had been dumbfounded that such a cockamamie plan had actually worked, the makers might have at least shown self-awareness. This version is based directly on the 2003 film, rather than the Manga (as originally intended when Spielberg and Will Smith briefly flirted with the property). The thrust in both film versions is that something meaning nothing to one person, a youthful foolishness, leads to irrevocable consequences for another. But the alterations made by Lee and writer Mark Protosevich (something of a remake man; with Poseidon and I Am Legend behind him, inspiration is clearly not his forte) serve to cast an even harsher light on the original’s shortcomings.

Changing the relationship that leads to Adrian’s actions adds symmetry and ick factor, but it is correspondingly less believable that young Joe never heard about the consequences. The rise of Adrian, a billionaire no one has ever heard of, including Joe’s school chum Chucky (Michael Imperioli), who hasn’t spend 20 years locked in a room, is also difficult to countenance. Luminous and lovely as she is, Olsen’s acting talent can’t overcome the problem with Marie any more that she could sell Elle Brody in Godzilla. Olsen is stuck with a character of incoherent and unbelievable motivation, a cypher created to fulfil a plot point.

Whatever my opinion of Park’s film as a whole, the filmmaking skill is undeniable. On the most surface level, the corridor fight scene has justifiably become a legend in its own right. Lee refits it here and, while there is some excitement from seeing this kind of one shot (well, a few more, since its split level) choreography, it’s diffused by the weakness of opponents who only ever pull their punches in order to make the sequence flow. Better is the savage beat down of a football squad just after Joe is released. And the exit from solitary itself, via a trunk in the middle of a field, retains a surreal splendour unfortunately lacking elsewhere. Joe’s incarceration has its moments, such as hallucinating the bellhop picture on the wall come to life (played by Cinque Lee, Spike’s brother, this is surely a nod to his role in Mystery Train 25 years ago). Samuel L Jackson works with Lee for the first time since Jungle Fever, and his performance as Chaney, Mohawk aside, would blend in seamlessly with pretty much all his shouty roles of late. Joe’s torture of Chaney is wince inducing, but reflects the movie as a whole; impersonal, functional, efficient filmmaking that looks accomplished and has the occasional flourish but fails to make the viewer care about what happens.

The final scene also departs from Park’s original. Lacking the hypnosis angle, Joe sees justice for what he has done as re-interment in his motel room. At which point he smiles. Conceptually, it’s a neat and effective choice, but to have resonance Lee and Brolin need to translate the horror at Joe learning of what he has done. And they can’t pull it off. Perhaps that’s why Park opted for such insane excess. Brolin is fine; moody and taciturn, he lacks iconic presence of Min-sik Choi; perhaps he needs roles with more differentiation or flair to make an impression, as he isn’t sufficiently commanding on his own.

This is one of Lee’s few overtly studio-minded movies, following Inside Man seven years ago. It’s ironic then that it’s proved to be one of the biggest stinkers of his career (up there with Miracle at St. Anna in terms of budget far exceeding box office). It’s difficult to see how anyone thought a picture with such a grim twist would ever be more than a cult property in the US to begin with, and therefore probably not a smart idea to throw big (-ish) bucks its way. All the handsome production values in the world can’t justify this movie’s existence any more than the similarly pointless Let Me In a few years ago. That, at least, retained many of the original’s strengths. Oldboy only goes to confirm its predecessor’s weaknesses.

Comments

How would Horatio Alger have handled this situation?

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) (SPOILERS) Gilliam’s last great movie – The Zero Theorem (2013) is definitely underrated, but I don’t think it’s that underrated – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas could easily have been too much. At times it is, but in such instances, intentionally so. The combination of a visual stylist and Hunter S Thompson’s embellished, propulsive turn of phrase turns out, for the most part, to be a cosmically aligned affair, embracing the anarchic abandon of Raoul Duke and Doctor Gonzo’s Las Vegas debauch while contriving to pull back at crucial junctures in order to engender a perspective on all this hedonism. Would Alex Cox, who exited stage left, making way for the Python, have produced something interesting? I suspect, ironically, he would have diluted Thompson in favour of whatever commentary preoccupied him at the time (indeed, Johnny Depp said as much: “ Cox had this great material to work with and he took it and he added his own stuff to it ”). Plus

No matter how innocent you are, or how hard you try, they’ll find you guilty.

The Wrong Man (1956) (SPOILERS) I hate to say it, but old Truffaut called it right on this one. More often than not showing obeisance to the might of Hitchcock during his career-spanning interview, the French critic turned director was surprisingly blunt when it came to The Wrong Man . He told Hitch “ your style, which has found its perfection in the fiction area, happens to be in total conflict with the aesthetics of the documentary and that contradiction is apparent throughout the picture ”. There’s also another, connected issue with this, one Hitch acknowledged: too much fidelity to the true story upon which the film is based.

He’s so persistent! He always gets his man.

Speed (1994) (SPOILERS) It must have been a couple of decades since I last viewed Speed all the way through, so it’s pleasing to confirm that it holds up. Sure, Jan de Bont’s debut as a director can’t compete with the work of John McTiernan, for whom he acted as cinematographer and who recommended de Bont when he passed on the picture, but he nevertheless does a more than competent work. Which makes his later turkeys all the more tragic. And Keanu and Sandra Bullock display the kind of effortless chemistry you can’t put a price tag on. And then there’s Dennis Hopper, having a great old sober-but-still-looning time.

You were a few blocks away? What’d you see it with, a telescope?

The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) (SPOILERS) John Carpenter’s first serial-killer screenplay to get made, The Eyes of Laura Mars came out nearly three months before Halloween. You know, the movie that made the director’s name. And then some. He wasn’t best pleased with the results of The Eyes of Laura Mars, which ended up co-credited to David Zelag Goodman ( Straw Dogs , Logan’s Run ) as part of an attempt by producer Jon Peters to manufacture a star vehicle for then-belle Barbra Streisand: “ The original script was very good, I thought. But it got shat upon ”. Which isn’t sour grapes on Carpenter’s part. The finished movie bears ready evidence of such tampering, not least in the reveal of the killer (different in Carpenter’s conception). Its best features are the so-uncleanly-you-can-taste-it 70s New York milieu and the guest cast, but even as an early example of the sub-genre, it’s burdened by all the failings inherit with this kind of fare.

But everything is wonderful. We are in Paris.

Cold War (2018) (SPOILERS) Pawel Pawlikowski’s elliptical tale – you can’t discuss Cold War without saying “elliptical” at least once – of frustrated love charts a course that almost seems to be a caricature of a certain brand of self-congratulatorily tragic European cinema. It was, it seems “ loosely inspired ” by his parents (I suspect I see where the looseness comes in), but there’s a sense of calculation to the progression of this love story against an inescapable political backdrop that rather diminishes it.

To survive a war, you gotta become war.

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) (SPOILERS?) I’d like to say it’s mystifying that a film so bereft of merit as Rambo: First Blood Part II could have finished up the second biggest hit of 1985. It wouldn’t be as bad if it was, at minimum, a solid action movie, rather than an interminable bore. But the movie struck a chord somewhere, somehow. As much as the most successful picture of that year, Back to the Future , could be seen to suggest moviegoers do actually have really good taste, Rambo rather sends a message about how extensively regressive themes were embedding themselves in Reaganite, conservative ‘80s cinema (to be fair, this is something one can also read into Back to the Future ), be those ones of ill-conceived nostalgia or simple-minded jingoism, notional superiority and might. The difference between Stallone and Arnie movies starts right here; self-awareness. Audiences may have watched R ambo in the same way they would a Schwarzenegger picture, but I’m

The game is rigged, and it does not reward people who play by the rules.

Hustlers (2019) (SPOILERS) Sold as a female Goodfellas – to the extent that the producers had Scorsese in mind – this strippers-and-crime tale is actually a big, glossy puff piece, closer to Todd Phillips as fashioned by Lorene Scarfia. There are some attractive performances in Hustlers, notably from Constance Wu, but for all its “progressive” women work male objectification to their advantage posturing, it’s incredibly traditional and conservative deep down.

What do they do, sing madrigals?

The Singing Detective (2003) Icon’s remake of the 1986 BBC serial, from a screenplay by Dennis Potter himself. The Singing Detective fares less well than Icon’s later adaptation of Edge of Darkness , even though it’s probably more faithful to Potter’s original. Perhaps the fault lies in the compression of six episodes into a feature running a quarter of that time, but the noir fantasy and childhood flashbacks fail to engage, and if the hospital reality scans better, it too suffers eventually.

One final thing I have to do, and then I’ll be free of the past.

Vertigo (1958) (SPOILERS) I’ll readily admit my Hitchcock tastes broadly tend to reflect the “consensus”, but Vertigo is one where I break ranks. To a degree. Not that I think it’s in any way a bad film, but I respect it rather than truly rate it. Certainly, I can’t get on board with Sight & Sound enthroning it as the best film ever made (in its 2012’s critics poll). That said, from a technical point of view, it is probably Hitch’s peak moment. And in that regard, certainly counts as one of his few colour pictures that can be placed alongside his black and white ones. It’s also clearly a personal undertaking, a medley of his voyeuristic obsessions (based on D’entre les morts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac).

You don’t know anything about this man, and he knows everything about you.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) (SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s two-decades-later remake of his British original. It’s undoubtedly the better-known version, but as I noted in my review of the 1934 film, it is very far from the “ far superior ” production Truffaut tried to sell the director on during their interviews. Hitchcock would only be drawn – in typically quotable style – that “ the first version is the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional ”. For which, read a young, creatively fired director versus one clinically going through the motions, occasionally inspired by a shot or sequence but mostly lacking the will or drive that made the first The Man Who Knew Too Much such a pleasure from beginning to end.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog