jesse o
You know, I remember my mom telling me countless times that I should be a lawyer. The reason she said this was because, no matter what she said or what situation she put forward, I would always end up trying to find another side to it. And that's what, some, lawyers have to do when defending their clients. They have to come up with alternate theories to, maybe, exonerate their clients from the crimes they've been accused of committing. Personally, who knows if I would make a good lawyer, but if I was, I'd probably do my best to find all possible angles of a particular event, if I was defending someone who I believed was innocent that it. In some cases, this really is a matter of life and death and not doing your research is a disservice to the profession and to the client you're defending. I suppose that's not really relevant to the film I'm about to go over, but since I like to pad my reviews, I try to have a little introduction. Sue me. You know, if I'm being honest, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this movie. What I mean by that is that this movie is certainly very solid. The casting is very strong and, as a result, the characters are brought to life. They may not be the most complex of individuals, but they feel like they belong here. If that makes sense. It's not a movie that, while not over-the-top comedic, doesn't take itself too seriously. And I definitely enjoyed the progression of the story. One of the issues that I have with films like this, where a character brings to light corruption in the government, or at least someone who's running for congressman in this case, is the fact that they always end up becoming a little too convoluted for its own good. They end up involving too many people with too many different angles at play. Thankfully, though, this movie keeps things relatively simple. It features Jae-wook being framed for a murder he, obviously, did not commit by his previous boss, Jong-gil, the former chief prosecutor who's now running for a position in congress. Jae-wook is obviously a short-tempered individual, who abuses his position of power in order to get results, but he is not a murderer. And, if you were to do a real thorough investigation of the 'murder' itself, Jae would never actually end up being implicated, since he needed the witness to tell him the truth in order for him to expose the corruptuon involving the housing development contract and who stands to gain from it. Why would he murder the one person who will give him the answers that he needs. But it's a concept the movie never plays with until Jae gets his retrial at the end of the film. That's neither here nor there, but it's something worth pointing out. So Jae ends up in jail and a good chunk of this earlier stuff in the jail reminds me way too much of The Shawshank Redemption. Jae uses his knowledge of the law to help fellow guards and inmates. Five years later and he, essentially, rubs the prison, as it were. Sort of like Andy Dusfresne in Shawshank, but not as integral as Andy was. This is when he meets career con-man, Chi-won. This is one of the movie's strongest aspects, since Hwang Jung-min and Gang Dong-won have some really strong chemistry together. The former, in my opinion, is one of South Korea's best actors and he always delivers the goods. This flick is no different. Though, again, I don't wanna say that there's a lot of depth to his character, but you sympathize with him, even though you know some of the things he's done go past beyond dedication to your job. Regardless, Jae helps Chi get released on a legal technicality on the condition that, in exchange, he finds out who's responsible for framing him. Now, I don't wanna say this is where the movie falters, because it doesn't, I just mean that it's not as interesting, to me, as the stuff in the prison with Jae and Chi-won together. Which is intriguing, because this is structured sort of like a caper/heist, in that planning itself takes up a lot of time and is, regularly, the least interesting part. The execution of the plan is, to me, always the highlight. And this is the other way around. Though, to be fair, a big part of that is the fact that Jae and Chi are kept apart. Again, I felt their scenes together were some of the best that the movie had to offer. The investigation Chi-won conducts is still fun, since he's such an obvious bullshitter. Seeing him play everyone around him with every lie in the book is entertaining. But, thankfully, the movie keeps its focus and it doesn't deviate from the main narrative too much, there's some side stuff here and there with Chi-won but it all serves to feed into the main story of Chi-won finding enough evidence to get Jae a retrial. And the retrial is very satisfactory in how they slowly deconstruct Jong-gil's story and his lies. It also helps that the actor who plays Jong-gil does a great job at making himself into a detestable asshole. So I thought it all ended up working fairly well in telling a satisfying self-contained story. Obviously, it doesn't ever reach great heights and I don't think it was ever intended to be a great movie, as strange as that may sound. Going through this review, I find that there really wasn't much in the way of mixed thoughts at all. I enjoyed my time with this movie. I felt the acting was strong and the story, while not incredible, was satisfying. So, yea, it's not a great movie by any means, but I'd recommend it. This review sucked. Oh well, such is life. Not everything I write is gonna be a home run. And this is where you say 'you've never hit a home run in your 12+ years writing reviews'. Must you all be insensitive bastards???
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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