Review of I Saw the Devil (2010) by Justin H — 22 Aug 2011

I love revenge movies, but they only work when the audience has reason to care about the characters. Sadly, that's where "I Saw the Devil" drops the ball spectacularly; these are some of the flattest characters I've ever seen in a film of this type. For example: The killer is...er, a serial killer who targets women. Oh, and he drives a shuttle van for a high school, and for some reason, he knows a cannibal. As for the cannibal, he's...well, a cannibal, who has somehow managed to find a woman to marry him. I'm not exaggerating here; what I've listed above is virtually EVERYTHING we learn about these characters in nearly two and a half hours.

The same goes for the protagonist. He's a cop who was never there for his wife, and now she's been murdered by the killer and he wants revenge. That's it. You couldn't make flatter characters if you ran over the script with a steamroller. But it actually gets worse, because this film features the absolute worst "protagonist" ever. Minor spoilers follow.

So, the "hero" of the film--a COP, mind you--finds the killer at maybe the halfway point, beats the crap out of him, and...sets him free with an envelope full of money, so he can hunt him all over again. As a policeman, he's charged with protecting the peace, and to just watch him set free a -serial killer,- putting untold numbers of people in jeopardy, just to draw out his revenge...it's very, very hard to root for a character with such wanton disregard for the well-being of others.

There are far better revenge flicks out there. Don't waste your time on this one.