(2024) Revolver - A Very Slow Paced Movie for Such a Simple Premise

Last weekend was a bit unexpected for me and my wife as we had limited options of films to see in the cinemas. I mentioned in my post before this that the films released in previous week were either gone or left with only few cinemas playing. Hence we decided to see this new movie that was available since mid of the week and played in several cinemas not far from our home. OK then, I will get on it.

Brief Story Line

Former police Ha Soo-young (Jeon Do-yeon - Kill Boksoon, The Good Wife TV series etc) was just released from prison after serving two years for taking the fall for high ranked officials. In return for prison time, she would be compensated with a certain amount of money promised by Andy (Ji Chang-Wook - Fabricated City, Welcome to Samdal-ri TV series etc) who worked for a large wealthy group called Easter Promise.

However, instead of meeting the people supposedly paying her, Soo-young was met by Madam Jung (Lim Ji-yeon - Spiritwalker. The Killing Vote TV series etc) whom she never saw before and was having trouble to acquire the money. Soo-young had no choice but to find ways to get the fund promised to her, despite all the danger she had to face.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Got to be honest that I did not have any idea on the movie's premise, just that it was classified under Action genre which usually would be of interest for me. When my wife found out it starred the popular Ji Chang-wook, she was immediately interested. So despite never saw its trailer and had no knowledge whether it was any good, we still went ahead to see this and hoping to have a good time. It turned out to be a little bit different from my expectations.

The movie started with the introduction of the lead characters and through several flash back scenes, we were shown the history of what happened in the past. For this part, I was quite satisfied cause there was always a time description for those scenes which made it easy to understand. And slowly it was clear that the story was actually pretty simple. It only focused on Soo-young trying to get what she was promised for and had to go through all the troubles. Unfortunately though, for such a simple premise, the story telling was so slow that I got a little bored and felt sleepy. Only after around half of the movie that it finally became more exciting and the pace was faster. Sadly though, the action part was very limited. The category of action by the cinema website was misleading to my opinion and I thought it was better classified as crime drama.

Anyway the lead cast were quite OK for me, but I totally agreed with my wife who viewed that Lim Ji-yeon was awesome. I think she was the real star of the film as without her, the movie would have been completely boring. Her character was a joy to see and was the only brightness in an otherwise flat emotionless drama. Meanwhile Ji Chang-wook played a character that was really unexpected. Aside from those three lead cast, there were plenty of support characters portrayed by people whom my wife recognized from her experience watching so many K-dramas and movies. Among them were Kim Jun-han (Mission: Cross, Anna TV series etc) as Detective Shin, Jung Man-sik (The Swordsman, The Worst of Evil TV series etc) as Mr. Cho, Kim Jong-soo (Smugglers, Moving TV series etc) as the director of Eastern Promise and several others. There were also the appearance of Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game TV series, Hunt etc), Jung Jae-young (Noryang: Deadly Sea. Partners for Justice TV series etc) and Jeon Hye-jin (Ashfall, Not Others TV series etc) as Special Guest Stars.   

Overall this was a film that was not exactly to my taste. I have no problem with the story and the performance of the cast (particularly Lim Ji-yeon), but unfortunately the slow pace reduced the element of fun. Don't get me wrong though, I am OK with slow pace if it's a mystery solving or psychological thriller. But having a duration of 115 minutes felt too long for such premise. Perhaps this was better suited for festival cause the writer & director Oh Seung-uk had been nominated and won few awards in the past for his work of The Shameless. Anyway if you are interested in action or intense crime drama, then I do not think you would be satisfied with this movie. However, you might find this interesting if you are OK with slow paced film with simple premise and good enough conclusion. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars