A Man finds himself kidnapped and locked away from the world in a single room for twenty years in Spike Lee’s remake of the Korean classic Oldboy. Our review is right here.
You can imagine our thoughts when it was announced that Spike Lee was to remake Oldboy – “why?” and “this shouldn’t happen” and “say it ain’t so” where among them. Park Chan-Wook’s original Korean film combined an excellent and original story, with Asian brutality and a killer ending. Did Spike Lee manage to recapture all of that for the western audience?
Some of it.
Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin) is a selfish drunk who won’t give a second’s thought to ruining the lives of others, when suddenly he is kidnapped and wakes up in, what looks like, a hotel room; only this hotel room has no means of an exit. He spends twenty years in the room, eating the same food and watching the same programmes whilst others watch him, in what looks like some sort of social experiment. Whilst in captivity, he is framed for the death of his former wife, which in turn leaves his three-year old daughter without a parent. 
He is released twenty years later and given a challenge – find out who kidnapped him and why. Should he do so, his name will be cleared and he will be given millions worth of diamonds. Should he fail, his daughter will be killed and he will remain the main suspect in his wife’s murder.
Spike Lee makes some changes to make his version his own and to westernise the story – gone is the octopus eating scene, yet he strangely keeps some in – for example the huge corridor fight remains, yet it doesn’t suit an American film like it did the Korean original.
Doucett’s captivity seems to fly by and we don’t feel the claustrophobia of being locked in the room, nor the length of time that passes; all we see is a few news clips on the television to say “yeah, another five years has passed”. It’s like Lee couldn’t wait to get that part of the film done with so he can get on with fight sequences and the brutal on-screen killings.
Brolin does a good job, as does Elizabeth Olsen and Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos) in supporting roles. We won’t spoil who plays the main villain, but we feel this great up-and-coming actor is in the wrong role and it doesn’t quite suit him.
Before we head off, the explanation scenes at the end didn’t fit and resembled Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol with Doucett playing Ebeneezer Scrooge and the villain taking place of the Ghosts.
Overall Thoughts:
Not a bad film but not a patch on the original. Spike Lee should have either made more or less changes – instead he goes somewhere in between, which then ruins the overall tone of the movie.