I Saw the Devil (2010)

Directed by Jee-Woon Kim
Written by Hoon-jung Park
Starring Byung-hun Lee, Min-sik Choi, In-seo Kim and Yoon-seo Kim

A secret agent seeks revenge on the serial killer who killed his pregnant fiancee by capturing him, torturing him and releasing him, only to hunt him down and do it all over again.

Korean-revenge movies have got to be my favorite genre of movies. Not only do they have the satisfaction of American-revenge films, but they are also significantly more intricate and thought out. It's not just shoot-em-up action, like Hollywood's stories. They are designed to mess with your psyche.

"I Saw the Devil" is an intense, bloody, action-packed thrill ride. It brings the term "cat-and-mouse" to a whole other level. Two men hell bent on destroying each others lives with nothing to lose and no lines to cross.

Min-sik Choi ("Oldboy") is as brilliant as ever in his role has the ruthless serial killer. He commands every scene he is in and exceeds all expectations I had for him in this film. He is intimidating and irredeemably evil, yet his presence makes it next to impossible to look away.

This is easily one of the best movies I have ever seen. There is so much going on and so many twists and turns that it just grabbed me in the first minute and didn't let go until the credits were rolling. It is movies like this that keep me going with this movie-a-day challenge. These diamonds in the rough make watching all of those bad or painfully mediocre movies worth it. Just seeing one of these a month keeps me going.

My Rating: 9/10

Tusk (2014)

Written and Directed by Kevin Smith
Starring Justin Long, Michael Parks, Haley Joel Osment and Genesis Rodriguez

When podcaster Wallace Bryton goes missing in the backwoods of Manitoba while interviewing a mysterious seafarer named Howard Howe, his best friend Teddy and girlfriend Allison team with an ex-cop to look for him.

I went into this movie completely expecting to hate it. But half-way through it, I was entranced by the ridiculousness and absurdness and the arguably poetic nature of the story. Then, Kevin Smith does what he does best and completely ruined it by dragging out jokes too long.

It started out so strong with the banter between the protagonist and the mad scientist to the point that I thought that maybe, just maybe, Kevin Smith finally discovered how to make a movie that wasn't about people smoking pot. Then, as fast as it built itself up, if not faster, it crumbled to pieces into a drawn-out and unfunny SNL skit where the audience is expected to laugh just because the actors have a silly voice.

Never have I ever seen a movie fall apart so quickly. It's almost as if the entire film was just a prank that did nothing but waste every ones time. If this is supposed to be a comedy, it's not funny. If this is supposed to be a horror movie, it's not scary. It just exists.

One important aspect of horror movies that today's filmmakers seem to forget is that you have to make your characters likable in order for us to connect with the terror they're being put through. "Tusk" is not the only example of this short coming, but it is definitely an offender.

I may not have started this movie with the hopes of liking it, but I definitely felt that urge at some point before the fifty-minute mark. Kevin Smith wrote, directed, produced and edited it. And unfortunately I feel the latter is where he was mistaken. Ultimately, he didn't know when to cut a scene and call it a day. Scenes that began phenomenally quickly dwindled into horrendous-ness.

My Rating: 3/10

Child 44 (2015)

Directed by Daniel Espinosa
Written by Richard Price, based on the novel by Tom Rob Smith
Starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Gary Oldman and Joel Kinnaman

A disgraced member of the military police investigates a series of nasty child murders during the Stalin-era Soviet Union. He finds their are many obstacles in his way due to the Soviet belief that there is no such thing as murder in a communist paradise.

Starting off strong, this movie wastes no time to get to the plot. With just enough character development in the beginning, the audience understands who exactly our protagonist, Leo Demidov, is and what he stands for.

At times, the plot is hard to follow and despite such a clear and concise prologue, many aspects of the story are missed in their delivery. There are times when I felt I knew exactly what was going on, only to find out I was completely wrong. And not because of an amazing plot twist.

There were other points in the story where I felt they used the setting of Soviet Russia as a scapegoat for many plot holes. The audience was just left to assume that every little thing that happened was due to the communist state.

"In Soviet Russia, Tom Hardys you!"

Though it's not without it's faults and it is certainly not the best movie I've seen even today, it is by no means a bad movie. It has a lot of great moments and honestly, I was quite intrigued throughout most of it. I just feel it could have been much more than it was. And perhaps it was, but was forced to be cut down by the studio.

My Rating: 6/10