Beasts Clawing at Straws: Survival of the Wicked

"The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means." So quipped Oscar Wilde. And while Wilde clearly didn't have Beasts Clawing at Straws in mind, the 100-something-year-old epigram definitely applies to Kim Yong-hoon's enjoyable thriller. Which says a lot because there are so many bad guys vying for that Gucci bag of cash. Many are psychos: the madam (Jeon Do-yeon), the guilt-ridden lover (Jung Ga-ram), the loanshark (Jeong Man-sik). Others are more like infuriating foils: the foul-mouthed grandma (Youn Yuh-jung) and the jerky manager (Heo Dong-won). Some are just complicated: the indebted call-girl (Shin Hyeon-bin) and the shady customs official (Jung Woo-sung). The only good people seem to be the naive janitor (Bae Sung-woo) and his cleaningwoman wife (Jin Kyung).

If this sounds like a lot of characters, you're not wrong. And they're hardly the only memorable ones. For instance, there's also a cannibal hitman (Bae Jin-woong) who never speaks, and a dim-witted best friend (Park Ji-hwan) who you may quickly write-off as doomed. Yet despite the huge cast, Beasts Clawing at Straws is never confusing or confounding. To his credit, Kim has crafted an intricately plotted crime pic in which your alliances are constanty changing and in a weird way, justice kind of prevails. Granted, in a very twisted manner. Side note: One of the production companies credited at the top is called Artsploitation and Beasts Clawing at Straws more than lives up to that description.

Hard Hit: Car Bomb

There's something so satisfying about a thriller with a simple plot-device. In Hard Hit, a father (Jo Woo-jin) — shuttling his daughter (Lee Jae-in) and son to school — discovers a bomb has been planted under the driver's seat. If he gets out of his car... BOOM! It's the same gimmick as Speed — more or less — except smaller vehicle, less passengers, and higher stakes. So what's the mystery caller want? Money was my first guess since daddy's in banking. And considering a co-worker's car blows up pretty quickly, you know that the man on the phone means business.

So what does one do in such a heinous situation, except drive on? In this case, our man-behind-the-wheel attempts to negotiate. He stalls for time. He calms his children. He suggests a more reasonable amount of cash. But we all know how this works! That caller insists on getting every damned penny. And you better not call the cops or the bomb squad (Jin Kyung). No time for excuses; you best be wheelin' and dealin' fast. Which is a skill our panicking hero possesses. As the extortionist says, "You certainly lie well." Which of course makes us wonder what his relationship is like with his wife (Kim Ji-ho). But we can explore those questions much later... depending on who survives!

Remake(s): Writer-director Kim Chang-ju's Hard Hit (2021) is inspired by Alberto Morini's screenplay for Retribution (2015) which was also remade as the German film Don't. Get. Out. (2018).

Veteran: A Movie for the Resistance Movement

You tend to think of action movies as exaggerating dramatic conflicts as a way to heighten entertainment value but when you consider the level of corruption currently on display by today's American President and the sycophantic, morally bankrupt Republican party in both houses of Congress, it seems almost impossible to one-up the institutionalized rapacity, mendacity, racism, and sexism broadcast nightly on the network news. In other words, the grifter's world portrayed in Ryoo Seung-wan's Veteran comes across at this moment in history as unbelievably quaint. Viewed the year it came out — two years ago in 2015 — I'm guessing, I would've observed the bloodthirsty, sadistic son (Yoo Ah-in) of an unscrupulous businessman (Song Young-chang) who more or less gets away with murder thanks to ties to high ranking officials in the police department and judicial system as not so much realistic as illustrative. Now I know better.

I've no doubt that our elected officials, military personnel, government appointees, and business boardrooms are riddled with mercenary, amoral, self-serving racists from the top on down. I'm not saying everyone is a bad apple; I'm saying the rot is ubiquitous. Which is why good cops like Do-cheol (Hwang Jung-min), his social-worker wife (Jin Kyung), and his immediate supervisor (Oh Dal-su) are so important to see in the movies. I also think the movie is pretty accurate in showing that the only way people change is when their personal circle is affected. The police chief (Chun Ho-jin) is probably taking pay-outs or at the very least caving under pressure from above but once a rookie detective (Kim Shi-hoo) gets stabbed, his loyalty to his men comes to the fore. I guess some people need to feel threatened to take action. Well, feel threatened then. And then resist, resist, resist.

Footnote: Don't miss Ma Dong-seok's all-too-brief cameo when he steps out of a crowd during the final fight between the movie's hero and villain.