Oldboy (’13)
Spike Lee has never been one to shy away from controversy. However, when you try and tackle an American adaptation of “Oldboy,” the instant masterpiece from Chan-Wook Park, it’s possible to bite off more than you can chew. Still, points for effort, Spike; I’ve come to expect some flaws in even your most ambitious movies, and that’s not always a bad thing.
But can Spike Lee, one of our greatest American filmmakers, possibly do justice to a classic? That’s a difficult question to answer. He tries, certainly, and he’s got some great materials, both in Mark Protosevich’s screenplay, as well as in a cast that includes Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sharlto Copley, to work with. Unfortunately, he can’t quite stick the landing the way Park did. Even worse, he can’t find his own way in to the material, so that he could possible make a true “Spike Lee Joint.” That was probably inevitable, though; “Oldboy” and Park, in the middle of his “revenge trilogy,” were perfectly matched. Let’s put it this way…can you see a Scorsese or Coppola trying to remake “Do the Right Thing?” Yeah, they might do a good job, but it could never have the intensity and energy Lee’s landmark had. Same philosophy stands here.
The story is well-known: a businessman (here, Joe Doucett, played by Brolin) is kidnapped and imprisoned one day after a night of heavy drinking. He doesn’t know who does this, he doesn’t know why. But for 20 years (it was 15 in Park’s film), he remains in a solitary room, where he is slid food under the door for meals, and has limited TV access, but enough to see that his wife has been brutally murdered (and he is set up to be the prime suspect), leaving his young daughter an orphan. One day, he is suddenly set free, and given mere days to find the answers for his imprisonment, because whoever it is has his daughter, and will kill her if he doesn’t succeed. Thankfully Joe meets a young woman (Olsen) who will help him, and is sympathetic to his plight.
I so want to say that this movie works. That Spike Lee has added an unconventional classic to his socially-vital filmmography, much like he did with his 2006 genre entry, “Inside Man.” Sadly, there’s no real way for Lee to make the material his own, even if it left me engaged and entertained as the credits roll. The cast is hardly to blame: yes, Copley, as a former classmate of Doucett’s, goes so far over-the-top it’s like he’s a silent film villain, but he still has some choice moments, as do Olsen and Jackson. As Doucett, Brolin is a great choice, with the right physique and emotional coil to pull off such a demanding role. On a technical level, Lee does pull off some bold, bravura sequences, like the windows into the past that illuminate secrets held by the characters, and a scene between Brolin and Jackson that has been teased in the trailers, but is suitably nerve-racking in its entirety. And Olsen and Brolin have good chemistry, which is important if the ending is going to work at all. As a whole, however, Spike Lee’s “Oldboy,” for all the chances it tries to take, and all the value it has as a genre flick, lacks the juice, and feverish imagination, it’s predecessor had in spades to make it an uncompromising work of cinematic art.
