Oldboy (2013 film)

''Oldboy'' is a 2013 American neo-noir action thriller film directed by Spike Lee and written by Mark Protosevich. It is a remake of Park Chan-wook's 2003 South Korean film of the same name and follows a man who searches for his captors after being mysteriously imprisoned for twenty years. It stars Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, and Sharlto Copley.

''Oldboy'' was released in the United States on November 27, 2013, by FilmDistrict. It received a mixed reception from critics, with many finding the film inferior to the classic.

Plot

In 1993, alcoholic advertising executive Joe Doucett gets drunk after losing a major account because he insulted his client’s girlfriend. Before he passes out, he sees a woman with a yellow umbrella selling souvenirs on the street. When he wakes up, he finds himself locked in what appears to be a hotel room. His unseen captors provide him food, alcohol, and personal hygiene items, but do not explain why he is held captive. Joe sees a news report saying his ex-wife Donna has been raped and murdered and that he is the prime suspect. He learns their 3-year-old daughter Mia was adopted through the welfare system and is now a cello prodigy.

Over the next 20 years, Joe quits drinking and gets into shape, intent on escaping and getting revenge. He compiles a list of all those who might want to imprison him, and writes letters to eventually be given to Mia. One day he watches a televised interview of Mia, who says she would forgive her father if she ever saw him.

Shortly after, Joe is drugged. He wakes up outside in a trunk in a field, with a cell phone and a small amount of money. He spots the woman with the yellow umbrella and runs after her. He loses her but encounters Marie Sebastian, a nurse who offers to help; he refuses the help, but takes her business card. Joe goes to the bar of his friend Chucky and explains what has happened to him, before receiving a call on his cell phone from a man calling himself the "Stranger", who mocks him. After failing to identify the caller, Joe collapses from dehydration, and Chucky calls Marie to help. While he recovers, Marie is moved emotionally by Joe's letters to Mia and offers to help him further. She helps him identify a Chinese restaurant which supplied his food while he was held captive.

Joe follows a delivery from the restaurant to a warehouse where he was imprisoned, and meets Chaney, its owner. Joe tortures Chaney by flaying his neck with a utility knife; Chaney confesses that the Stranger arranged for Joe's captivity. Upon returning to Chucky's bar, Joe finds the Stranger there with the woman with the yellow umbrella, his bodyguard Haeng-bok. The Stranger says they have kidnapped Mia, but he makes an offer: if Joe can determine the Stranger's identity and the reason for his 20-year captivity within the next 46 hours, he will release Mia, give Joe $20 million in diamonds, release evidence proving Joe's innocence in Donna's murder, and commit suicide.

Joe learns that Chaney and his men are seeking revenge by attacking Marie. After racing to her house, he is captured by Chaney. Just as Chaney is about to torture Joe, the Stranger calls Chaney and offers to pay him for Joe and Marie's release; Chaney obliges. Using a music recognition app on her phone, Marie determines that the ringtone from the Stranger's call is the theme song of Evergreen Academy, a now-closed school that Joe attended.

Marie visits the school headmistress's home, while Joe sneaks in a back door and finds his yearbook where he recognizes a student, Adrian Doyle Pryce. Joe passes the name to Chucky and hides Marie in a hotel for her safety. There they have passionate sex, unaware that the Stranger (actually Adrian) is watching through hidden cameras. Chucky, researching Adrian on the internet, learns everything has been about Adrian's sister, Amanda, and leaves Joe a message informing him; however, Adrian intercepts and deletes the message before Joe can hear it, and garrotes Chucky to death with piano wire for insulting Amanda. Marie and Joe enter the Evergreen Academy grounds and find the school's records regarding Adrian and Amanda. Joe recalls bullying Amanda and seeing Amanda having sex with an older man, revealed to be her own father, in the school's greenhouse. When others at Evergreen learned what happened, Adrian's father moved the Pryce family to Luxembourg, where he later murdered his wife and Amanda, and attempted to murder Adrian, before killing himself. Back at the car, they find a package with Chucky's tongue inside. Joe makes Marie promise to let him go after Adrian alone.

Joe goes to Adrian's penthouse, kills Haeng-bok by slitting her throat, and confronts Adrian. He tells Adrian what he learned about Amanda and Adrian's father, and Adrian congratulates him for answering the questions correctly. Adrian, who believes his father's abuse was an expression of love, blames the destruction of his family on Joe, who revealed their secret by telling everyone at Evergreen what he saw in the greenhouse. Adrian gives Joe the diamonds and evidence, and escorts him to the sets used to fabricate the media watched by Joe in captivity. Adrian taunts Joe by questioning why he was released at all, and shows that the interview with "Mia" was a setup; the girl, now a woman, was a paid actress. He reveals that Marie is actually Joe's own daughter Mia, and that he wanted Joe to know what it felt like to lose everything. Adrian then shoots himself in the mouth, killing himself.

Horrified, Joe writes Marie a letter saying they can never see each other again. He leaves her most of the diamonds, using the rest to pay Chaney to return him to the captivity of the hotel room, presumably for the rest of his life.

Cast

* Josh Brolin as Joe Doucett
** Grey Damon as young Joe Doucett
* Elizabeth Olsen as Marie Sebastian
* Elvy Yost as "Mia Doucett"
* Sharlto Copley as Adrian Doyle Pryce / The Stranger
** Erik Gersovitz as young Adrian Pryce
* Samuel L. Jackson as Chaney
* Michael Imperioli as Chucky
** Brett Lapeyrouse as young Chucky
* James Ransone as Dr. Tom Melby
* Max Casella as James Prestley
* Linda Emond as Edwina Burke
* Pom Klementieff as Haeng-bok
* Elvis Nolasco as Cortez
* Lance Reddick as Daniel Newcombe
* Hannah Ware as Donna Hawthorne
* Richard Portnow as Bernie Sharkey
* Hannah Simone as Stephanie Lee
* Lizzy DeClement as Amanda Pryce
* Caitlin Dulany as Emma Pryce
* Cinqué Lee as Bellhop
* Steven Hauck as Arthur Pryce
* Rami Malek as Browning
* Ciera Payton as Capri

Production

Early development

An American remake of '' Oldboy'' (2003) previously had director Justin Lin attached, with Ernesto M. Foronda and Fabian Marquez writing the screenplay after previously collaborating with Lin on '' Better Luck Tomorrow'' (2002). In November 2008, DreamWorks and Universal were securing the rights to the remake, which Will Smith had expressed interest in starring, with Steven Spielberg as director. Mark Protosevich was in talks to write the script, although the acquisition to the remake rights were not finalized. Smith later clarified that Spielberg would not be remaking the film: he would be adapting the ''Old Boy'' manga itself, which is considerably different from the film. In June 2009, the manga's publisher launched a lawsuit against the Korean film's producers for giving the film rights to Spielberg without their permission. Later in November 2009, it was reported that DreamWorks, Spielberg, and Smith had stepped back from the project. The producing team announced on November 2009 that the project was dead.

Director and casting

On July 11, 2011, Mandate Pictures sent a press release stating that Spike Lee would direct a remake of the South Korean film (ignoring the earlier version's adaptation of the manga) with a screenplay written by Protosevich. Josh Brolin was cast to star in the remake as the lead character, while Christian Bale was reportedly in talks to portray the antagonist character, but it was later reported that Colin Firth had been offered the role. Firth later passed on the role, which was later offered to Clive Owen. In May 2012, ''Deadline'' reported that Sharlto Copley had officially been cast as the villain Adrian Pryce. Elizabeth Olsen, Samuel L. Jackson and Nate Parker were all later announced to have joined the cast. Parker was later replaced by James Ransone, due to a scheduling conflict. The film marked Jackson's first time working with director Lee since 1991's '' Jungle Fever''.

Principal photography began in October 2012.

Final cut editing

Spike Lee's version was 140 minutes long, but the producers heavily re-edited the film to 105 minutes (re-edits by producers also included the "one-shot hammer" scene); Lee and Josh Brolin were unhappy with it. Lee even removed his trademark "A Spike Lee Joint" credit for a more impersonal "A Spike Lee Film" during the editing process. Brolin has also said in an interview with the ''Los Angeles Times'' that he prefers Lee's version of the film, though it is not clear if this cut will ever be released.

Release

Theatrical

''Oldboy'' was released theatrically in the United States on November 23, 2013, by FilmDistrict. It was the last film to be distributed by the company, before Focus Features absorbed the company in October 2013.

The film grossed $885,000 in its first five days, one of the weakest Thanksgiving openings of all time, according to ''Variety''. It opened in 18th place at the box office and finished with a worldwide gross of $5.2 million.

Home media

The film was released in the United States on DVD and Blu-ray on March 4, 2014, by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Critical reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 39% based on 151 reviews, with an average rating of 5.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Suitably grim and bloody yet disappointingly safe and shallow, Spike Lee's ''Oldboy'' remake neither surpasses the original nor adds anything new to its impressive legacy." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Matt Zoller Seitz of '' RogerEbert.com'' gives three of four stars, saying: "Because the Internet moves with the speed and ferocity of a hornet swarm, there's a chance that by the time you read this, Spike Lee's American remake of ''Oldboy'' will already have been stung to death. If so, too bad. This American version of Park Chan-Wook's Korean thriller is Lee's most exciting movie since ''Inside Man''—not a masterpiece by any stretch, but a lively commercial genre picture with a hypnotic, obsessive quality, and an utter indifference to being liked, much less approved of."

Justin Chang of ''Variety'' said that "Lee and Protosevich have made a picture that, although several shades edgier than the average Hollywood thriller, feels content to shadow its predecessor's every move while falling short of its unhinged, balls-out delirium." Michael Phillips of ''The Chicago Tribune'', in a one and a half star review noted that "The revenge in ''Oldboy'' is neither sweet nor sour; it's just drab".

Eric Kohn, in a largely positive review at ''Indiewire'' said: "It's been so long since Lee made such a thoroughly amusing work that fans should have no problem excusing its messiness. But make no mistake... ''Oldboy'' is all over the place, sometimes playing like a subdued melodrama and elsewhere erupting into flamboyance and gore."

See also

* '' The Count of Monte Cristo'': an 1844 novel with a similar premise, referenced briefly in the film.

Notes

References

External links

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{{Authority control

2013 films
2013 action thriller films
2010s mystery films
American action thriller films
American mystery films
American remakes of South Korean films
Films about child sexual abuse
Films directed by Spike Lee
Films about murder
American films about revenge
Incest in film
Live-action films based on manga
Films set in 1993
Films set in 2013
Films set in New Orleans
Films shot in New Orleans
Mandate Pictures films
Universal Pictures films
40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks films
FilmDistrict films
Films produced by Roy Lee
Filicide in fiction
Films about rape
American neo-noir films
Films scored by Roque Baños
Vertigo Entertainment films
2010s English-language films
2010s American films