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If you’re a movie fan, you know how revenge flicks usually go. Whether it’s John Wick, Kill Bill, The Crow, or anything else in this genre, they all follow the same basic formula. A character lives a (mostly) normal, happy life; someone wrongs him; and the protagonist wreaks bloody vengeance against his enemies. It’s the same story every time, so when you sit down to watch a revenge film, you generally know what to expect.
But when you watch Oldboy, you can throw those expectations out the window. Sure, the movie follows the typical genre blueprint for most of its runtime, but the third act turns that template completely on its head. Oldboy actually ends up being an anti-revenge film, so it provides an important counterbalance to the movies that typically populate this genre. It tells us in no uncertain terms that vengeance is wrong, so let’s take a deep dive into this Korean cult classic and see just how it conveys its important message. Setting the Stage When Oldboy begins, its protagonist, Oh Dae-su, leads a relatively unremarkable life. He’s a businessman with a wife and daughter, but soon after we first meet him, his entire existence gets upended in just about the worst way possible. The night of his daughter’s fourth birthday, the guy is kidnapped and thrown into a sealed hotel room, and he’s forced to stay there for fifteen years. During his entire captivity, Dae-su never learns who locked him up or why, and he has no contact with the outside world other than a small television that helps keep him sane. Unfortunately, that TV isn’t quite enough, so he teaches himself martial arts by practicing against a wall in his hotel room. He also tries to dig his way out of this unconventional prison, but before he can complete his tunnel, his captor suddenly lets him go. Somewhat surprisingly, Dae-su still doesn’t know who this mysterious kidnapper is even after he's freed, but he’s determined to find out. He meets and falls in love with a beautiful sushi chef named Mi-do, and together, they slowly track down the man who took fifteen years of Dae-su’s life. The guy wants his revenge, and nothing is going to stand in his way. That’s the basic setup of Oldboy, and as I’m sure you can tell, it’s pretty standard for the revenge genre. It’s basically John Wick with a fifteen-year imprisonment instead of a dead dog, so the first time you watch this film, you’d be forgiven for expecting Dae-su to get the vengeance he so desperately seeks. And if you dig a little bit deeper, you'll also find some subtler clues that Oldboy is going to follow the typical vengeance blueprint. For starters, when Dae-su is finally freed from his captivity, he looks like a legit action hero. Everything about the guy, from his hair to his clothes to the way he carries himself, gives off an unmistakable, almost tangible aura that can only be described as BA, and I don't mean bachelor of arts. It’s tough to put it into words if you’ve never seen the movie, but when you watch it, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. You just know Dae-su is a dangerous man, and when he finally gets to show off his fighting skills, he does not disappoint. He plows through numerous enemies multiple times, so there’s no doubt in your mind that he’s the real deal. He proves himself more than capable of completing his mission, so you have every reason to believe he actually will. Turning the Tables But surprisingly, Oldboy doesn’t turn out that way. Like I said before, this ends up being an anti-revenge film, and it conveys that unexpected message in a number of ways. To see how, let’s begin with Dae-su’s mysterious tormentor. Our protagonist eventually learns that he was kidnapped by a man named Lee Woo-jin, an old classmate of his, and he also finds out why Woo-jin had him locked up for fifteen years. Back when these men were in school, Dae-su saw Woo-jin committing incestuous acts with his sister, and after he told one of his friends about it, rumors and gossip about the incestuous couple began to circulate among their fellow students. This eventually led Woo-jin’s sister to commit suicide, and as you might be able to guess, Woo-jin blamed the poor girl’s death on the kid who saw them. Even as an adult, he still harbored a grudge against Dae-su, so he used his considerable wealth to get revenge. He had the man kidnapped and locked away for over a decade, and that raises serious moral questions for us viewers. For most of Oldboy, we see Dae-su as the good guy and Woo-jin as the bad guy, but they’re essentially two sides of the same coin. They’re both seeking vengeance for egregious wrongs they’ve suffered, so if Dae-su is justified in his quest for revenge, Woo-jin must be as well. But anybody who’s seen Oldboy knows that can’t be right. Woo-jin is indisputably evil, so there’s really only one conclusion we can draw. We’re forced to acknowledge that vengeance itself is wrong, so even though we initially sympathized with Dae-su, we have no choice but to admit that his pursuit of vengeance is just as indefensible as Woo-jin’s. What Really Matters That’s already enough to make Oldboy an anti-revenge film, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The real point of this story comes later on, when Dae-su confronts his tormentor for the last time. He finds out that his girlfriend, Mi-do, is actually his long-lost daughter and that Woo-jin had them both hypnotized so they would fall in love with each other. It’s a disgusting turn of events you almost certainly didn’t see coming, and when Dae-su learns this appalling truth, Woo-jin threatens to have one of his men tell Mi-do as well. That threat takes all the fight out of Dae-su, and he immediately forgets about his pursuit of vengeance. The man drops to his knees and begs forgiveness for what he did all those years ago, and he asks Woo-jin to spare Mi-do the burden of this horrible knowledge. He even acts like a dog and cuts his tongue off as a gruesome penance, and to his relief, Woo-jin eventually accepts his apology. On the surface, this grisly third act may seem like little more than an exercise in gratuitous repulsiveness, but upon deeper reflection, we find that it's actually incredibly meaningful. See, before learning the truth about his relationship with Mi-do, Dae-su was consumed by his quest for vengeance. At one point in Oldboy, he even tells Mi-do that he can’t abandon his mission, saying, “Seeking revenge has become a part of me.” However, once the woman he loves is put in danger, Dae-su shows that he actually can let it go. He realizes that protecting Mi-do in the present is more important than seeking revenge for the wrongs of the past, and that realization holds an important lesson for us as well. Like all evil, the pursuit of vengeance can become addictive, but it has an antidote: love. In other words, Dae-su’s story doesn’t just tell us that revenge is wrong. It also highlights a much greater good that’s infinitely more deserving of our time and effort. Oldboy shows us that caring for our loved ones is unquestionably more important than getting back at the people who’ve hurt us, so despite wearing the trappings of a typical revenge flick, this is actually a deep and thematically rich anti-revenge film.
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I can’t say I’m the world’s biggest Nicolas Cage fan, but for the past seven or eight years, I’ve been loving Cage’s largely horror-driven renaissance. Granted, I don’t like everything he’s done in that time, but movies like Mandy, Color Out of Space, and Dream Scenario have made his name an immediate green flag for me. Every time I hear about a new Nic Cage film, I’m instantly intrigued, so naturally, The Surfer has been on my to-watch list for a little while now. The marketing kept the movie’s plot mostly under wraps, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from it, but I knew one thing. I was excited to see another big-screen effort from one of my favorite actors in the world, and that was enough to get my butt in a seat on opening day.
The Surfer was directed by Lorcan Finnegan, and it stars Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon, Nic Cassim, Miranda Tapsell, Alexander Bertrand, and Justin Rosniak. In the film, Nic Cage plays an unnamed man who returns to the Australian town where he grew up, and he wants to take his son surfing. But almost immediately after he and his kid step foot on the beach, they learn that the locals there don’t take kindly to outsiders, even if they’re originally from the town. These belligerent residents force the pair to change their plans, but for some reason, the titular surfer stays in the parking lot even after his son goes home. From there, anything and everything that can go wrong for the poor guy does go wrong, and soon enough, everybody he meets, not just the jerks on the beach, turns his life into a living hell. I’m not going to bury the lead. I just got home from watching The Surfer, and I’m not entirely sure what I think of it. I need to let the experience stew in my brain a bit longer before I can say if I liked it or not, but there is one thing I know for sure. This is a very interesting movie, so at the very least, it gives viewers quite a bit to chew on. Let’s start with the protagonist’s descent into what may or may not be abuse-induced madness. Like I said, no matter what this man does, nothing seems to go right for him, and the filmmakers do an excellent job of finding new ways to push his buttons. Just when you think things couldn’t get worse for the poor guy, the script throws another horrible wrench his way, and to the surprise of no one, Nic Cage plays the role just about perfectly. As his character’s life unravels more and more, Cage tweaks his performance to reflect the man’s deteriorating mental and physical state. He changes his facial expressions, the way he carries himself, and even the way he talks to let you know this guy isn’t well, and there’s a moment involving a picture of his car that might even break your heart a tiny bit. On top of all that, as the locals pile on the abuse, you slowly start to wonder how much of this story is actually happening and how much is just in the titular surfer’s head. See, some of his tormentors soon begin to gaslight him and tell him he’s not really who he claims to be, and while you may not buy it at first, their case eventually becomes tough to ignore. In fact, almost from the very beginning, The Surfer has a bit of a surreal, dreamlike feel to it, so the more you think about it, the more it makes sense that our narrator would ultimately prove to be unreliable. Those psychological mind games are hands down the best thing about The Surfer, but they’re also somewhat of a double-edged sword. Sure, they have a fascinating effect on the main character, but the residents’ motives for their behavior come across as incredibly underwhelming, at least initially. For much of the movie’s runtime, it seems like they’re just being jerks for the sake of being jerks, and if you ask me, that’s not very interesting. These bland antagonists even start to get irritating after a while, so they just might ruin the entire experience. But then again, maybe they don’t. This is why I’m not entirely sure what to think of The Surfer yet. We eventually do get a real explanation for the locals’ abhorrent behavior, and their horrible antics also have quite a bit of thematic significance. So at the end of the day, it comes down to whether you think that payoff is worth it, and that’s what I’m still trying to figure out. For obvious reasons, I can’t say much about the characters’ real motives for being so horrible to the surfer, but I can talk about the themes their conduct embodies. At its core, this film is about what our culture likes to call “toxic masculinity.” It’s about men who think they have to let off some steam by acting like amoral savages every once in a while, and the story unmasks this mindset and shows it for the insidious lie it truly is. It’s a noble message, but personally, I wish The Surfer had gone a bit deeper into the sexual element of toxic masculinity. Everybody knows it’s wrong to be a jerk, but way too many people today still think being a man entails viewing women as objects. Our culture (and especially men!) desperately need to learn that real masculinity respects women and protects their dignity, and not exploring that disastrous deficiency in our society’s understanding of manhood is a huge missed opportunity. With all that being said, would I recommend seeing The Surfer? Well, it depends. I don’t think it’s a must-watch, but if you already wanted to see the film before reading this review, or if it sounds like something you think you’d enjoy, I say go for it. Even though I’m still not entirely sure what I think of the film, there’s enough good in it that I think it’s worth checking out, and as I hope I’ve been able to convey, if nothing else this is a very interesting watch that’ll give you a lot to chew on. Everybody loves an underdog, but what happens when the underdogs are so emotionally damaged and hopelessly outgunned they have zero chance of winning? That's essentially the premise of Thunderbolts*, the latest superhero adventure from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I found it just about irresistible. I had no idea how this rag-tag band of B-listers was going to overcome their inner struggles and defeat their seemingly unstoppable foe, but I knew one thing for sure–I couldn't wait to find out.
Thunderbolts* was directed by Jake Schreier, and it stars Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. In the film, five former supporting MCU characters–Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, and John Walker–finally get their time to shine. When Ghost, Yelena, and Walker are sent on separate but intertwining suicide missions by corrupt CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, they unwittingly awaken the Sentry, a godlike, nearly omnipotent superhuman created by de Fontaine’s team of scientists. At first, the Sentry seems like he’ll be earth’s mightiest hero, but he quickly breaks bad, forcing the trio who unleashed him to team up with Bucky and Red Guardian to save the day. As you can probably guess from the premise, Thunderbolts* is a very character-centric movie. Sure, it has the jokes and action we’ve all come to expect from the MCU, but like any good superhero team-up, it stands or falls largely on the strength of its five protagonists. If they don’t work, the film will almost certainly fail, and thankfully, they’re an absolute blast…well, mostly. The first half of Thunderbolts* focuses primarily on that initial trio–Ghost, Yelena, and Walker–plus the Sentry (known only as Bob at this point in the story), and their dynamic is a bit hit or miss. In particular, the comedic chemistry between the arrogantly overconfident John Walker and the more competent assassins Yelena and Ghost is pretty entertaining, but a lot of the jokes fall flat as well. At times it almost feels like it’s an even 50/50 split, so despite a number of great moments, the humor here doesn’t quite have the special sauce that’s made the MCU such a joy to watch for nearly two decades. In contrast, Bob is an absolute revelation. Actor Lewis Pullman plays the role with a sympathetic vulnerability that’s instantly magnetic, so from the moment we first meet this guy, we can’t help but love him. In fact, I’d even say the character is at his best when he’s not wielding his insane powers. He becomes a bit stiff once he transforms into the Sentry, but when he’s just a regular guy, he’s a joy to watch every time he’s on screen. Around the midway point or so, Bucky and Red Guardian join the titular team, and once they come to the fore, Thunderbolts* runs on all cylinders. Bucky enters the superheroic fray with a Winter Soldier-esque action scene that reminds us why he’s such a great character, and actor Sebastian Stan doesn’t lose a step until the credits begin to roll. But as great as he is, the real star of this show is Red Guardian. Just like in Black Widow, he’s here primarily for comic relief, and he provides the secret ingredient the first half of Thunderbolts* was missing. He brings a special brand of comedic confidence that’s almost childlike in its innocence, so whenever this guy opens his mouth, you just know he’s at least going to bring a big smile to your face. Those great characters are the heart and soul of Thunderbolts*, but they’re not the only thing this movie has going for it. It also features a whole bunch of really fun action, and when Sentry’s dark side rears its ugly head, he’s genuinely terrifying. The guy looks like he was ripped right out of a horror flick, and he goes about his business with the kind of easy, serene calmness that’s somehow all the more chilling for its lack of effort. He just might be the darkest villain the MCU has ever put on screen, and that darkness is reflected in the film’s themes as well. Most obviously, everybody in this movie has a grisly past. To take just a couple of examples, Bucky was a mind-controlled Hydra assassin for decades, and John Walker once used the Captain America shield to publicly murder a man in brutal fashion. These are far from the squeaky-clean superheroes we often get from Marvel, so at its core Thunderbolts* is primarily about redemption. It gives its characters a chance to reject their sinful pasts (without, of course, using the language of sin) and start over by using their abilities and skills for good, and if you’re a Christian, you can’t help but see that as a powerful point of contact with the Gospel. Going even darker, Thunderbolts* also deals with themes of loneliness and depression, but the movie never becomes overly glum. It tackles these grim ideas only to shine a hopeful light on them, so if you’ve ever experienced similar afflictions yourself, you’ll be sure to appreciate the way our titular heroes overcome their mental health struggles by finding love and acceptance in this crazy new family. In case you couldn’t tell, I really enjoyed Thunderbolts*. Sure, it’s not quite top-tier Marvel, but it’s pretty good. The film ultimately overcomes its first-half flaws and ends up having all the heart, humor, and action moviegoers have come to expect from the MCU, so if you’re a fan of the long-running superhero franchise, I recommend checking out this latest entry. You won’t be disappointed. |
Jp Nunezis a longtime film buff and theology nerd with master's degrees in theology and philosophy from Franciscan University of Steubenville. His favorite movie genres are horror, superheroes, and giant monsters. Archives
May 2025
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