Review of "Oldboy"

Spoiler Alert!

Well this has some big shoes to fill. “Oldboy” was a critically acclaimed South Korean film that hit our screens in 2003. Its thrilling blend of suspense and brutal violence made the movie a success across the world. Interestingly, the original “Oldboy” was also a hit in America. This new film was ostensibly an American remake of a movie that the US market had already received well. I could not help but wonder what this version would bring to the story or to its telling. Thusly intrigued, I cautiously took my seat. Show time!

Poster of the origial movie. Dont worry about the hammer. He is fixing something. Fixing justice!

Its 1993 and Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin) is a massive bell end. Cursing at his wife, ignoring his daughters third birthday, buggering up a business deal, vomiting in the street. The guy is a loser. After one hard bender he wakes up in a shabby hotel room. With no window. And a steel door sealed from the other side… All he has is a couple of TV channels, three meals a day and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. No one will talk to him and he can’t get out. Twenty years later he awakens in a grassy field. Who had this done to him? Why? Doucett begins his quest for vengeance and answers.

It would have cost Broslin over £200,000 to stay in a Premier Inn for twenty years. The more you know!

Some of Oldboy is worth recommending. It’s suitably sinister for a thriller and no one is out of place. But I don’t know what audience this film is aimed at and therefor struggle to polish the finished product. There is a great fight scene reminiscent of the original that takes place in one shot. Doucett is so pumped up on rage he doesn’t even feel pain as two by fours are bust over his head. Seriously, the whole thing is shot like a side scrolling computer game and quite frankly is darkly cool. The prison warden (Samuel L. Jackson) gets tied to a table as Doucett begins to enact the slowest decapitation I have ever seen. Seriously the whole scene was more excruciating that watching a ‘Sex in the City’ boxed set. Proper grim! 

Doucett cannot be stopped by even your mediocre graphics! 

My first concern with “Oldboy” takes place about five minutes in. Josh Brolin does a great job as our protagonist and carries heavy weight in the fighting scenes. The guy is competent and dam entertaining. I certainly won’t look at a hammer the same way again. But that’s kind of the problem. He dominates the screen. There is nothing subtle about the man – he is bloody massive. In one shot he sits behind a desk while taking a phone call. He looks like a titan playing at being a white collar worker. Later on we are meant to see him ‘transform’ into the lean mean killing machine bent on vengeance. But it was always there! Despite how well he plays the role, Broslin is just not an ordinary one of the crowd kind of guys – and that’s who Oldboy needs to be! Sharlto Copley gets special mention as our psycho bad guy. As you would expect from a US film this guy is such a twisted individual that he just has to be British. But it’s not just the accent! That voice. Every time Copley speaks in this film he completely creeps me out. I still have shivers! Samuel L. Jackson? He is in the film and he plays Samuel L. Jackson well. Thankfully, he still manages to pull of his three ‘mother-fuckers’ a minute, as he is contractually obliged to do in each film. 

This is Sharlto Copley. You totally recognise him from that movie. 

The one in South Africa with the aliens? Remember? 

Check him out. He’s pretty good.

Something just doesn’t work with “Oldboy”. I was never board, but if you asked me for a recommendation I would say wait for it on Netflix or go see the original. The film suffers a massive shift about half way through as it moves towards the conclusion of Doucett’s story. However, the shift is so massive that you realise there is an entire chapter missing. There is no middle to this film and you feel it. Some scenes are beautifully shot while others have been knocked out by the work experience chap. Then there is the Apple promotion. Doucett wakes up with an iPhone. “I need the yellow pages! Where are all the payphones?” This is an actual line from the film. Was it necessary? Well, yes – he has been out of the loop for so long he could be a member of the royal family. But the movie handles his reintroduction to technology so cynically that it lands flat. I don’t care if its product placement or not, just have some fun with it! “Oldboy” has had an effect on me. It has challenged me on what someone is capable of when powered by vengeance. But that’s about it. Meh.

I would totally get an Apple tattoo. But the next one is due in a few months and it will be so much better.

I have no idea if you are the target audience of this film. I give “Oldboy” one and a half Brian faces out of five.

 Jackson gets you the extra half face. This is now a rule.