Oldboy – Equally As Nasty As Its Source

Producer/director Spike Lee’s most ostensibly commercial movie since his Inside Man (and his first remake) is an Americanised version of Korean filmmaker Chan-wook Park’s original (one of his infamous ‘vengeance’ epics, as drawn from Nobuaki Minegishi’s Manga comic), and just about equally as nasty as its source. A drunk, loudmouthed ad exec named Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin) is kidnapped by persons unknown and kept in solitary confinement for reasons he doesn’t understand for 20 years (15 in the original), and we watch a long, freaky montage of his life in a locked and boarded-up hotel room where he eats nothing but Chinese food and watches the world pass by on TV. When mysteriously released, he sets out to find who’s responsible for such a terrible punishment, along the way meeting up with a helpful med student (Elizabeth Olsen) and behaving in such a scarily obsessed fashion you rather wonder if he’s, in fact, learned anything, and is still a bit of a dickhead. (Special Features: two featurettes) (Universal, MA, 104 Mins) Dave Bradley