Review of Oldboy (2013) by David J — 18 Oct 2015

There were parts that I liked about this film, and other parts that were generic, poorly placed, or poorly paced. I really liked some of the emotional elements during the initial imprisonment stage of this movie, and I thought the visual style and action in the film were very good.

I especially enjoyed the action sequence where Brolin's character was escaping the warehouse while fighting off Sam L. Jackson's henchmen. That had a nice kung-fu movie feel. I also enjoyed the level of gore in the film, as it went to extremes, but not to often.

It was a nice balance; a controlled extreme if you will. I don't want to say I liked the climax of the film, per se; I liked it in that I appreciated the story that it was trying to tell. However, I didn't think the right emotional build up had quite occurred in the film to give that finish the gut wrench that it was going for.

In the end, I liked it and I thought it was a nice enough showing for Josh Brolin, but it was not a great film.