By Robert Koehler

The wildly enthusiastic reception by critics in Cannes to Park Chan-wook’s romantic detective movie Decision to Leave was almost asking for a backlash. Whether or not that happens in Toronto, this much can be said: Park has pulled back notably from his previously mega-twisty, coiled narratives and stylings for something that’s faintly derivative of an entire library of detective fiction from Dashiell Hammett to Jo Nesbø. His considerable fan base—Park being a truly populist auteur—will recognize how the maker of Oldboy (2003) has cleverly conformed to the limitations of the femme fatale noir, but the nature of the movie is nevertheless antique, despite its sheer beauty and its modernist remolding of old genre forms.

Looking to solve a murder case he can get his hands into, young-ish Busan police inspector Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) gets his wish with the mountain death of a wealthy 60-year-old man, whose oddly cool wife, Seo-rae (a remarkably mercurial Tang Wei, in the best single performance in any of Park’s movies), would seem to be a prime suspect. The insomniac detective, though happily married, is pulled to her mystery in classic noir fashion, and while it’s interesting to see the usually over-the-top Park tailor himself to such classicism, it lacks sufficient surprise. To wit, one of Seo-rae’s gambits (a huge factor in the overall plot) is nakedly manipulative for all to see except, somehow, master sleuth Hae-joon himself. When he later realizes he’s been snookered, we are way ahead of him, and the movie.

Robert Koehler