Pipeline: Striking Oil, Not Gold

I'm trying to figure out why director Ha Yoo and his co-writer Kim Kyung-chan included a subplot involving two cops in their thriller Pipeline. The central story, which involves a motley, underground crew siphoning oil from two major subterranean conduits, is more than enough. The film already has the tensions that come when a bunch of desperate oddballs unite to execute a major outlandish crime: Drill-bit (Seo In-guk) has too much ego; Mr. Na (Yoo Seung-mok) has cancer; and Shovel (Tae Hang-ho) has brawn without brains. There's even a rivalry between Drill-bit and the team welder Jeob-sae (Eum Moon-Suk) while the questionable loyalties of the sole female gang member Counter (Bae Da-bin) also factor into the story. Another narrative thread is hardly needed.

Indeed the driving drama doesn't rely on the lawmen but instead on an evil benefactor — the insanely greedy, insanely in-debt Gun-woo (Lee Soo-hyuk) who promises exorbitant amounts of cash if this gang can pull of his wackadoodle oil heist. As for the cops (Bae Yoo-ram and a not-so-memorable sidekick), they come with a back story and goofy demeanors that suggests they're the comic relief. Laugh, I did not. Nor did their presence distract me from the nonsensical aspects of anyone trusting Mr. Moneybags at his word or an involved bit of trickery that allows this criminal crew to outwit their despotic funder with a karmic water bomb.

Project Wolf Hunting: Animated, Terminated

I'm not suggesting that the sadistic criminals aren't way smarter than the bumbling cops in Kim Hongsun's ultra-bloody prisoner-escape movie Project Wolf Hunting. But there are still some steps I would've taken once I'd gained control of the Frontier Titan ship whether I was overthrowing my captors at sea or guarding the extradited passengers from the Philippines to South Korea. No matter which side you're on why wouldn't you...

1. Throw the dead bodies overboard.
2. Keep the doctor nearby to administer first aid as needed.
3. Handcuff the pilot to the steering cabin.
4. Keep someone alive for repairs in the engine room.
5. Retain one form of communication with the outside world.

Then again, why do I bring up such concerns when there's maggot-mouthed supervillain (Choi Gwi-hwa) enters halfway through to turn the smiling sociopath (Seo In-Guk) — whom you thought was the primary nemesis — into an expendable secondary character? Though it doesn't reveal the fact until late in the game, Project Wolf Hunting is a monster movie, an over-the-top fright flick in which the evil mastermind is a ruthless gay sex addict who fatally gags the man giving him a blowjob and the final three survivors are mutants who undergone serious gene therapy. Who's behind it all? A pharmaceutical company called Aeon genetics. It's the type of situation that asks: Can one tough woman (Jung So-Min) actually save the world from another military experiment gone awry? Or were Ridley Scott and James Cameron wrong?