★
I was going to pretend that Spike Lee’s “Oldboy” was not a
remake of one of the best films of the last decade. I was going to sit there
and watch “Oldboy” as if I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was not
going to write my review for “Oldboy” and not compare it to the classic film
from Chan-wook Park. Then I saw Spike Lee’s “Oldboy”. And now I just can’t help
myself.
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| Josh Brolin helps butcher a classic film |
It’s October 1993 as the movie opens. Joe Doucett (Josh
Brolin) works in a New York ad agency. To put it politely, Joe is not a very nice
person. He’s a raging alcoholic who is only interested in looking out for
himself and his business. He doesn’t even want to attend his daughter’s third
birthday because he has an important client to meet for dinner. After making a
fool of himself at said dinner, Joe wanders aimlessly drunk through Chinatown
until he passes out.
When he wakes, he’s in a dingy motel room, but there isn’t
anyway out. He’s been kidnapped and is being held prisoner. All he has is a
bed, a toilet, a shower, a TV and a copy of the Bible. On the TV, he finds out
that his wife has been brutally murdered and the he is the prime suspect. He
also learns through a true crime show that his daughter has been given up for
adoption. Time passes and after 20 years, he is set free. He’s given a stack of
100 dollar bills, some sunglasses and an iPhone 5.
Enlisting the help of his old friend Chucky (Michael
Imperioli) and an assistant at a mobile medical unit named Marie Sebastian
(Elizabeth Olsen), Joe sets out to find out who kidnapped him. He keeps
receiving calls on his iPhone from a blocked number. The voice on the other end
(Sharlto Copley) tells him he has his daughter and he’ll kill her if he doesn’t
play the game. Joe needs to figure out who this man is and why he kidnapped him.
Otherwise, it’s lights out for the daughter he really wants to know.
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| Min-sik Choi and Hye-jeong Kang in the vastly superior 2003 version of "Oldboy" |
I fully intended on judging this film as a stand-alone movie
and not a remake of one of the best films to ever come from the Korean
peninsula. Halfway through the film, however, I couldn’t help but wonder why
this film was deemed necessary to be remade. I suppose there are plenty of
people who were never privileged to see the original Chan-wook Park
masterpiece. The vast majority of the movie going public is probably very
unfamiliar with this story. If you’re going to remake something, you might as
well make one that most of the people haven’t seen.
But you also need to bring something new to the table. I’m
not suggesting that Spike Lee’s “Oldboy” is a shot-for-shot remake of Park’s
“Oldboy” but there isn’t any new substance, depth or complexities to the story
or the characters that weren’t in the original. This version does not find Lee
at his finest form. Far from it. What we have here is a film that seems to
scare Lee. He seems timid in his approach to remaking such an acclaimed
classic, even if the cinephiles were the only ones in the United States to have
seen it.
Lee tries to incorporate too much of a Korean homage to his
film. Korean films have their own very distinct voice. It’s much different than
what American audiences are used to seeing. Someone could look at a Korean film
and think some of the action, pacing, editing, photography and dialogue are on
the campy side. While Lee keeps the vast majority of the film feeling very much
like an American film, his occasional homages feel largely out of place. One
scene in particular involves Brolin fighting a gang of people. It doesn’t quite
fit the tone that’s trying to be achieved and comes across looking very out of
place.
Furthermore, Lee included Samuel L. Jackson in a minor role.
Jackson is typical Jackson: loud speech and plenty of profanity. He’s also
dressed in some equally loud costumes too. His costumes scream Asian cinema.
His character, however, is distinctly American.
Brolin doesn’t ever come across as the hero he’s meant to
be. I found myself easily able to root for Min-sik Choi in the original. Brolin
just seems like some arrogant guy that I wouldn’t even be interested in
striking up a random conversation with at a bar. You can’t root for someone who
isn’t likeable. The screenplay from “Thor” scribe Mark Protosevich gives him
absolutely nothing to work with.
The one bright spot in this entire disaster is Elizabeth
Olsen who plays Brolin’s investigative counterpart. She’s already carved out
quite a career for herself in only a few years. She has easily escaped what
could have been an extremely large shadow cast over her by her former megastar
sisters. While Protosevich also gives her very little in the script, Olsen has
been able to build the character up all on her own. We’re given very little
backstory, but she seems much more relatable and much more empathetic. Olsen
saves this movie from being completely forgettable, but she alone doesn’t make
this a worthwhile venture.
“Oldboy” should have been off limits from Hollywood. If we
do have to have remakes, then I think that looking at small foreign films is
the route to go instead of remaking overplayed Hollywood films everyone knows. But
internationally acclaimed classics such as Park’s “Oldboy” need to be left
alone. For those who haven’t seen the original, I recommend you get on that
right away. It is available on Netflix’s instant streaming service.
The only catch is the film is dubbed instead of subtitled.
That’s a cardinal sin for foreign language films. Rather than reading it, you
have to listen to some guy who got paid SAG minimum to sit in a recording booth
and mumble his way through a script. And then the final product looks awful
because the dialogue doesn’t even match the movement of the actor’s lips (cue
jokes about old “Godzilla” movies). While dubbing this classic film’s
soundtrack is an extremely disrespectful move, it comes nowhere near the
blasphemy of its remake.
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