Review of Oldboy (2013) by Roberto J — 03 Jul 2014

Oldboy is an American remake, specifically a Spike Lee remake of a cult Korean film. It's about...well, I don't want to ruin it for anyone so let's just say its about a man who gets kidnapped, imprisoned for 20 years, and then set free. The rub is why was he set free after being locked up so long? That's the answer the protagonist, Joe Doucett, must find out as well, and he doesn't have much time. The person who set him free has given him a strict time line to find out or Joe risks losing the only person left he cares about.

There's a few serious twists that I can't even hint at here without spoiling the movie. But I can say they're all fucked up! Really warped and in one case, terribly heartbreaking and twisted. The actor who played Joe, Josh Brolin, did a great job of showing a man who shifts from being an unsympathetic asshole to a tortured prisoner to a man hellbent on revenge and justice. Samuel Jackson played a really bad man in this movie, but his dialogue was typical Sam Jackson, so that brought some comic relief to a very dark story.

The real star here is the story. It's so bizarre and messed up that it leaves you twisting in your seat and gasping in surprise. At least that's how it affected me. Spike Lee's direction style with the odd camera angles and foci is muted here, which I think is good and when he does use them, he uses them well.

I should also warn that this is a very violent film. At times it was so brutal it bordered on fantastical. The audience chuckled a few times, but most of that was nervous laughter because the violence goes from the absurd to shockingly realistic. That being said, I disagree with some critical reviews that say the violence was just done for shock value. I don't think it's on the level of say, Saw, but Lee didn't pull any punches either.

The worst violence here though is psychological. It's not just what's done to Joe the character, but what the movie does to the audience. Nothing Joe did warranted what he went through, but by the end, after all of the revelations are laid out, you're left wondering,or at least considering, if some punishments can become blessings in disguise. I'm not sure I completely bought the story, perhaps Lee should have spent more time getting into Joe's head. But I did like how crazy and different this movie was and how it affected me emotionally, so for that alone I'm giving it two enthusiastic thumbs up. Now I have to rent the original to compare!