[Movie Review] Despite of Ju Ji-hoons charm... Crime entertainment movie 'Gentleman'

연합뉴스 / 2022-12-23 09:09:45

▲This photo, provided by Plus M Entertainment, shows movie 'Gentleman' (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

SEOUL, December 23 (Yonhap) -- Ji Hyun-soo, a CEO of the private investigation company, gets a request from a client to accompany her to bring back her dog from her ex boyfriend and gets attacked at the cottage. When he woke up, the client was gone, and he had a weapon in his hand. All of a sudden, he became a suspect in the kidnapping incident.

However, the car flipped over while he was being taken to the station after being arrested by the prosecutor. People now think he is the prosecutor who caught the suspect in the kidnapping incident. He disguises himself as a prosecutor and looks for the client, who is gone, in order to clear his name.

The movie "Gentleman" depicts the story of Ji Hyun-soo, a CEO of the private investigation company struggling to reveal the truth of the kidnapping incident.

Hyunsoo has workers in his company with extraordinary skills, such as Cho Chang-mo, skilled in filming (Kang Hong-seok), Cho Pil-yong, skilled in spying (Lee Dal), and Lee Rang, skilled in hacking (Park Hae-eun). Kim Hwa-jin (Cho Sung-eun), known as a merciless prosecutor, joins the team, forming a powerful team.

Kwon Do-hoon (Park Sung-woong), the film's antagonist, is the head of a large law firm. He, who is a former prosecutor, easily attracts people in the judicial branch, entertaining them in diverse ways to gain power. Hyun-soo and Hwa-jin figure out that Do-hoon uses women, including his client, for entertainment, and plan to capture him.

It is certain that "Gentleman" is a movie that highlights actor Joo Ji-hoon's charm. Appearing in a clean suit all the time, he exudes his presence with his natural acting. It is also fun to watch Wing, the dog that appears with Hyun-soo in the movie.

However, Park Sung-woong's appearance as a villain is not much different from his previous work, resulting in too much familiarity. The same is true for the movie itself.

The sly main character is disguised as a prosecutor, a psychopathic villain, a young and smart prosecutor who runs into the case despite how dangerous it is, a team of sloppy but talented experts, and they are solving the case by crossing the boundaries between legal and illegal.

It is hard to feel something new even with the plot twists because it repeats the story structure and character setting in existing criminal entertainment movies, including caper movies (a movie that shows the plan and execution of crime in detail).

The movie is unable to decide a base as several devices that appeared in various works are mixed in one place, starting from realistic materials such as sexual favors by high-ranking social workers In particular, the employees of the private investigation company are not even given narratives, making it difficult to feel attracted to each person, and the exhilaration felt in the process of conducting the operation as a team is not impressive.

Although it added sophistication with cheerful music and smooth video with a sense of rhythm, it failed to overcome the fundamental problem that the story is improbable.

Director Kim Kyung-won, who was in charge of directing, said at a press conference held shortly after the premiere, "The movie started from the image of a man who seems to have a lot of stories walking between tailor shops and bars that are likely to be in the back alleys of entertainment districts. I was chasing after him, thinking, from the perspective of the audience, 'I wish there was a person like this.'"

The movie is scheduled to be released on December 28. The running time is 123 minutes, and rated PG-15.

(This article is translated from Korean to English by Dowon Kim.)

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