An Entertaining Taken Clone
Summary
I was expecting Unstoppable to be better than it is; it takes a while for any action to happen and the overuse of comic relief ruins some of the tension. The fight scenes are decent and the finale is satisfying with a hateful villain, but I feel like this could have been grittier than what it is. Worth a one time watch.
Plot: Dong-Chul (Don Lee) and Ji-Soo (Song Ji-Hyo) are a happily married couple. One day, Dong-Chul comes home to find his house in disarray and his wife is missing.
Review: Next up on my Don Lee watchlist is Unstoppable where he plays Dong-Chul, a factory worker who is always looking for a way to make more money. His character is quite naïve and very different from Ma Seok-do in The Roundup movies. He isn’t such an imposing badass but a more desperate character who just wants to do right by his wife, and keeps making bad decisions financially.
When his wife is kidnapped by the unhinged Gi-tae (Kim Sung-oh) Dong-Chul tries to do things by the book and going through the police to try and get her back, but when that fails he teams up with his 2 idiotic friends to try and save her.
This is where the film falls down for me is the silly humour that keeps cropping up and takes away from any potential tension. It still has a few moments like when Ji-Soo tries to escape with another girl. The film would have worked better keeping a gritty tone rather than being quite jarring with slapstick moments which took me out of it.
It also takes a while for any action to kick in; I think it was about 40 minutes before Don Lee even punches anyone so there isn’t a great sense of urgency for a lot of the runtime. It does pickup for the finale and when Dong-Chul finally gets to beat the absolute shit out of Gi-tae, it’s incredibly satisfying. Once again it’s interesting that he never actually kills anyone and the villain gets arrested rather than being flung into a combine harvester which he frankly deserved.
Overall, Unstoppable could have been an intense affair however, instead has a few tension-fueled moments but is otherwise oddly paced with unnecessary comic relief. There are a few fight scenes and a cool car chase at the end but it takes a while for any action to happen. It’s not up there with The Roundup movies, but still an entertaining watch.