'Oldboy' an apathetic, violent remake
Viewers unfamiliar with Park Chan-wook's original 2003 Korean production of "Oldboy" might be shocked by graphic violent acts and eye-poppingly frank sexual encounters in Spike Lee's update, as was a freaked-out New York audience during a preview two weeks ago.
In terms of lurid sensationalism, Lee's "Oldboy" delivers the goods with hammers to the head, knives to the back and razors to the throat.
However, Lee's update of Chan-wook's original - which I reviewed as a tough and tawdry tale combining Britain's Peter Greenaway, Canada's David Cronenberg and America's Quentin Tarantino - comes off as a cold and depersonalized retelling of a wild and inventive revenge opus, minus the infamous live octopus-eating scene.
In brief broadstrokes, we see how alcoholic Joe Doucette (Josh Brolin, bringing convincing heft to the role) crashes and burns as an absentee father and a professional ad executive in 1993.
He awakens from a drunken stupor in motel hell, a cheap-looking room with a TV set, but no windows or phone. Joe spends the next 20 years imprisoned here, never knowing how he arrived, or who put him there and why.
Through TV news reports, he knows that someone raped and killed his wife, and that the cops think Joe did it. Joe also knows his daughter has become a beautiful musician.
And, by watching chop-sockey action flicks, he learns martial arts, foreshadowing some insane fight scenes later.
Inexplicably freed in 2013, Joe must now discover the identity of the propagator of this cruel act and what motivated him to do it, otherwise more dire consequences will befall the bad ad exec.
Obviously, much of this movie's impact relies on shock and surprise, so no twists will be spoiled in this review.
It can be revealed that Joe meets a pretty social worker named Marie (Elizabeth Olsen), who seems to be a bit too eager to trust and help this stranger, inexplicably unamazed by computers, cellphones and other tech innovations developed since his incarceration.
Joe, by using his taste buds as an investigative tool, eventually discovers the location of his prison, run by a bureaucrat (Samuel L. Jackson) uninterested in helping Joe. Until Joe begins removing chunks of his throat with a razor. Eeek!
Chan-wook embraced this crazy premise with savage inspiration and breathless abandon, one reason why his "Oldboy" became the most notorious chapter in the filmmaker's "Vengeance Trilogy."
Lee, who burst upon the world stage with his 1989 controversial race drama "Do the Right Thing," stages this remake with near apathy, moving the characters through their paces until the story comes to its twisty finale.
At least Lee keeps the fight scenes - in which a hammer-wielding Joe takes on many assailants - in long, choreographed takes, instead of the blurry, confusing flash edits used in "Homefront" and other action pictures.
<b>“Oldboy”</b>
★ ★ ½
Starring: Josh Brolin, Samuel L. Jackson, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley
Directed by: Spike Lee
Other: A Film District release. Rated R for violence, nudity, sexual situations, language. 120 minutes