Review of Oldboy (2013) by Steven W — 17 Apr 2014

At the end of the day Oldboy is not a good film. That isn't to say you shouldn't see it however. First off it is high concept, which means the whole story revolves around a rather extreme situation in which the plot itself is a mystery. A man is abducted and imprisoned for 20 years then released and provided with a mission to discover the why behind it. This is a remake of a Korean film which I haven't seen but which was favorably reviewed.

The strength of this concept is that you are almost forced to be engaged and interested in order to find out exactly what is going on. In a bit of a stylistic departure Spike Lee directs, and he suceeds in giving the film the creepy aura that demands, as well as a suprisingly intense and visceral handling of the action sequences. However it is very clear that this movie has been over edited by someone (a little research will tell you that this was done by the producers). The impact of this editing is that the relationships and decisions that would right fully require some build up are presented too rapidly to seem rationale. Watching the scenes it is clear that Lee understood the tone and pacing that was needed, he was just apparently robbed of the final cut. Having said that there are elements of the script that ultimately don't pass the smell test of "how would a person really respond in this situation?" I would expect Lee to ferret out these weak spots but he clearly did not, or was overruled by someone.

So why should you see it? Because this is an unusal melange of movies like Chinatown, Saw, and a Hong Kong action film. You just don't see movies like this being made today, it's different with a capital D. While it does fail at the narrative level, it so far removed from the usual fare that it is worth seeing for that reason alone.