Idol: Two Dads, Too Many Crimes

Who's the good guy in Idol? Is it the unflappable politician (Han Suk-kyu) who argues against a nuclear power plant despite being the Chair of the Nuclear Power Plant Committee? Or could it be the melancholic single father (Sol Kyung-gu) who masturbates his mentally ill child up through adolescence and beyond if given the chance? It's certainly not the former man's son who's guilty of a hit and run or the latter man's sister who runs a massage parlor staffed by sex workers. Don't rush to a decision too quickly yet either because in classic noir crime fashion, writer-director Lee Su-jin is going to do a bit of a switcheroo midway through the film. I suppose it's to keep our interest. But for me the turnaround left me baffled. Despite running well over two hours, Idol feels like it's missing a few scenes that would justify one guy's fall from grace and another's lift into it.

If you're willing to put up with the big bump in the road, Idol is pretty engaging with a central femme fatale (Chun Woo-hee) who causes destruction everywhere that she goes. She's got a curse on her, a system against her, a sordid history, and an acute sense of smell heightened by an active pregnancy. Her scenes with the politican's ice-cold mother (Kim Seong-nyeo) are especially charged because neither of these two actresses are afraid to chew scenery. They're the true stars of Idol, bad guys and good guys notwithstanding.