Movie Review – ‘OLDBOY’ (2013)

I’m not in any way opposed to remakes.  An open mind is a happy mind, and if an idea works it works.  It definitely should be prefaced that I have no idea what someone not familiar with Park Chan-Wook’s adaptation of Nobuaki Minegishi’s manga, Oldboy, would think of Spike Lee’s film.  I have high doubts that someone would really walk into this story and say “what an interesting concept.”  There’s something so inherently Asian about a majority of the story and it’s telling.  The way it unfolds, like a puzzle that has to be completely deconstructed in order to even begin to construct it, just isn’t something very common in American filmmaking.  Hell, even the title Oldboy, which refers to a school’s name, is absolutely meaningless, here changed to Evergreen Academy.  I suppose Evergreen wouldn’t really pack the theaters, but once the very limited exposure this film gets in the first place gets around, that won’t be packing them in either.  Spike Lee and Mark Protosevich’s Oldboy is, in a word, flaccid.

Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin) is a lousy father, a drunk, and a philandering businessman who has made more enemies than he has friends in the world.  During a late-night bender he stumbles upon a pretty Asian lady with a yellow umbrella marked with four sets of five hash marks.  When he wakes up, he’s alone in a hotel room…or so he thinks.  Come to realize he’s held captive with no hope of escape for the foreseeable future.  His only driving force?  Watching TV and coming across a report on the rape and murder of his estranged wife and the 3-year-old daughter he abandoned.  He sobers up, shapes up, and watches kung-fu flicks to prepare to extract his revenge.  20 years pass, and he has a plan to escape.  Once he’s free, however, the mystery man (Sharlto Copley) who held him challenges him to discover his identity and why he put Joe into captivity.  The prize?  20 million in diamonds and the freedom of his captive daughter.  He enlists the assistance of a helpful medic Marie (Elizabeth Olsen) and his high school friend Chuck (Michael Imperioli) to uncover the truth.  But the mystery runs deep, and the dark secrets are revealed to devastating effects.

The set up alone put a sour taste in my mouth when instead of having the protagonist simply wake up in this room and having us discover, we’re walked with our hand held just too see how much of a shithead he is so that we can…well, I guess understand why he’s going to be held captive.  It’s unnecessary, and it’s ten minutes spent which should have been tapped onto the mid-section of the film that needed a little more time.  The pacing and the editing is part of where the complete disconnect with the audience comes from.  Sure, if you have prior knowledge of the film from 2003 you can fill in the gaps yourself because you know the story.  Problem being, if you HAVEN’T seen that film there’s a lot missing that will leave you puzzled.  Maybe puzzled is the wrong word, but you’ll at least feel cheated.  Last week a blurb came out from Brolin that the original cut of the film was just over three hours, and the final cut of the film is slightly under two.  He said he really liked the first cut much more than the final because it was a slow burn, which is what made the original film so fucking good.  The story is so complex and the definition of characters so important therein that a slice here and there can totally ruin the final product when either is altered.  Joe’s change from the man he was to the man he’s become, and what he’s willing to do for revenge, feels almost unrelated to his captivity, and that being the core of the film is a huge problem.

Spike Lee has arguably been out of touch with cinema since 2002 with The 25th Hour.  I personally think that his final masterpiece was Bamboozled from 2000 and that movie is an absolute mess (but brilliantly so), and some could even argue that his only REAL contribution that he’s remembered for is 1989’s Do the Right Thing.  But one thing is absolutely certain, and that’s Spike Lee has had some really, really bizarre career choices, and he’s made some truly awful films in his career among the gems.  He has no desire for genre film or even mainstream fair, his sole financial hit coming in the form of Inside Man in 2006.  Why he had any interest is directing this is beyond me, and after seeing the results so uninspired and boring I’m even more puzzled.

Sean Bobbit’s inspired cinematography is the one saving grace from this being a completely routine, low budget affair.  His angles and movements, the look and feel it gives the film, works.  The infamous “hammer in a hallway” brawl in 2003’s Oldboy is, like most of that film, brilliant.  It’s one of the most raw and brutal fights in cinema history, and it’s unrehearsed and gritty feel is fantastic.  By God, Bobbit tries so hard to emulate and recapture the magic with a fresh coat, but his work is instantly undone by a tongue-in-cheek, almost comical tone that pulls most of the teeth out of the event.  It’s so choreographed that even the cool moments feel like nothing.

Brolin does his best to get into character, but all I could see was him playing Jonah Hex without the accent.  He clearly has no direction towards what he’s supposed to be after he’s released from his prison, and his only instinct is to try to be gruff and tough…which isn’t quite right.  Samuel L. Jackson has a brief role as the owner of Joe’s captivity warehouse (where he is one of many) who gets one fairly memorable scene and phones it in, pretty obviously a favor to Lee who he’s known and worked with for decades.  Sharlto Copley as The Stranger does an impersonation of a Bond villain, practically twirling his mustache and scenery chewing his way to nowhere.  The sole bright spot is the ever lovable Elizabeth Olsen, though I’m convinced you can throw any role at her and she’ll nail it no matter how good the film around her is.  She’s the only person who seems to get the tone of the story correct, and her character is so pivotal that without her I think the film would’ve collapsed completely.

I’ve purposely not mentioned the twists the ending of the film takes simply because nobody needs it ruined for them.  I’ve so loved Park’s film for so long, though I’m more partial to Lady Vengeance, but the ending to Oldboy is so deliciously evil and twisted that I thought it not possible to match in any way.  Know what?  I was right.  Though the main concept is the same, the remake decides to take the high road and make what is so dark a tad lighter by tagging on a “happy” ending.  It was the nail in the coffin which already had about a hundred nails too many.  Do yourself a favor, save your money and purchase Palisades Tartan’s new 10th Anniversary blu-ray of the original, which was just released, and own one of the best films of the past decade.  You’re welcome.