The Unjust is a police thriller with big potential which fails to deliver continuous suspense and overcrowds the screen with undeveloped characters, making it impossible for the viewer to understand the motivations behind actions. It is a slow-paced unfolding story that is in its core essentially intriguingly sophisticated, but its delivery is too dull and too complicated and the good story lacks the support of enough suspense and drama to make it one of the more exciting films from South Korea this year.
Essentially similar to plenty South Korean and Hong Kong productions in the recent years, The Unjust is a man vs. man thriller, where the chase is full of surprising twists and dramatic events. While working on a rape/murder case, police officer Choi Cheol-gi is forced to wrap up the case, rather than solve it. Feeling the pressure of an internal investigation of his affairs and being convinced by the commissioner general to clean up the existing mess, Choi uses his relationship with gangster Jang Seok-gu to find a scapegoat for the crime in exchange for removing a competitor for Jang in his bidding for a new skyscraper. Little did he know, however, that said competitor is the main contributor to an ambitious prosecutor Joo Yang. As events get more complicated, the two start a game of cat and mouse, trying to outsmart each other, while pushing one another to desperate measures and causing disastrous consequences in the process.
Director Ryoo Seung-wan depicts Korea as the setting for moral decay, internal corruption at every level of public power and schemes of self-interest in one's own interest. His film transforms from a thrilling police action in the beginning to a more socially-aware tense character drama, where the director gives a commentary on the social realism in the country, prompted by recent government scandals. The Unjust does not develop with the speed of a typical action film and there are no thrilling gunfights or car chases to heat up the pressure, but the audience is given a special lens to follow the movements of each character and investigate their interaction, thus receiving an insight into the current social environment.
The main protagonists are both flawed, it will be hard to find a hero in this film. While Choi, pressed by his individual circumstances, is able to prompt some level of empathy and the viewer might root for him to succeed in his battle of wits with the prosecutor, Joo is more sleazy and with the lack of a better explanation of his corrupt ways, he oozes an air of complete arrogance and greed for power, which prompts a level of anti-heroism. But director Ryoo is more interested in presenting his thesis that anti-heroes, despite whether driven by personal problems or trying to climb up the social ladder, are both capable of unthinkable actions, when pushed till the limits of the possibilities in their attempts to reveal each other's corruption, while succeeding in concealing their own. Both Choi and Joo, as well as gangsters Jang and TK Chairman, turn into stereotypes, who are left with no choice but to play the rules of the game. This is the only thing that prompts deep sympathy for all the characters in the world, created by Ryoo – all protagonists are trapped in their social role and as things get deeper and deeper, escape becomes even more allude and the no-exit street leads to actions that would otherwise be prevented.
Despite its valuable message, The Unjust is needlessly complicated, placing layer after layer and changing sequences among characters before familiarising the viewer enough with who is who, as a result leaving the audience confused for much of the first middle, unable to completely follow the events. As the film investigates the web of broken rules at every possible level almost with a sense of sarcasm or dark comedy, Ryoo brings a level of twisted irony near the end which makes this film an even more difficult tale of one's cul-de-sac and what the human being is capable of when pushed to its very limits to mask his own errors in judgement and try to rebuild its life from a point of no return.Labels: research |
