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 espite a very graphic suicide (a bullet through the
head) popping up early in "Public Enemy," the rest of the film takes a
dramatic shift toward comedy. Not long after the suicide, a cab driver is
bludgeon to death by the film's villain, Cho (Seong-jae Lee), who later commits
a double murder in a particularly violent fashion. And yet, "Public
Enemy" is more comedy than it is anything else. (I know it's hard to
believe, but it's true.)
"Public Enemy" stars Kyung-gu Sol (from the
wonderful "Peppermint
Candy") as Kang, a corrupt cop who, as the film opens, has just robbed
drugs from some gangsters with intentions to sell it. When Internal Affairs
begins investigating him, Kang tries to dump the drug, only to find it
impossible. Frustrated, the burned out cop returns to work and ends up on the
trail of Cho, an ambitious fund manager who has just slaughtered his parents for
their money. Cho and Kang bumps into each other in the aftermath of the murder,
and from that moment on the two are at odds as Kang pursues Cho using all
avenues at his disposal -- and even some that aren't.
"Public Enemy" manages to balance the comedy and
drama very well, something I didn't think was possible. Despite a couple of very
bloody and violent murders, the movie never becomes "Seven"-ish --
meaning it never becomes depressingly morbid and obsessed with atmosphere. It's
hard to explain, but I was able to laugh riotously at the film's comedy mere
moments after a brutal murder took place, something I usually feel awkward about
doing. Somehow writer/director Woo-Suk Kang manage to draw this out of me, much
to my chagrin.
As the disheveled, slightly off-kilter Detective, Kyung-gu
Sol is nevertheless very endearing. Despite his lack of everything, we can feel
and see the honest cop inside him trying to get out. He's not the best detective
in the world, and his superiors are never hesitant to inform him of this fact.
But despite all that, Kang has something that makes him a great detective: he's
instinctive and tenacious, and he easily becomes Cho's worst nightmare, much to
Cho's surprise.
As the preppie/yuppie killer, Seong-jae Lee is the perfect
counterbalance to Sol's Kang. Cho is a man who always gets his way and he isn't
the least bit hesitant about killing a man for a perceived insult. So when this
out-of-control Detective (who is clearly Cho's lesser in intelligence, charm,
and looks) confronts this hot-tempered, murderous yuppie, Cho is completely
caught off guard. How do you shake a dog that won't be shaken? Kang has a hold
on Cho's leg and he isn't letting go, and the smarter man this dumbfounded.
How Kang eventually captures Cho is irrelevant (but think
"Colombo" for clues), because these two men are destined to end things
in a primitive and bloody manner. In something of a surprise, Kang and Cho don't
even meet each other until almost the halfway mark, when Cho murders his parents
one rainy night. Their encounter is brutal and violent, setting up the next hour
for the two men to butt heads, part, and butt heads some more. And it's all
spectacularly done, even if some of the plot points are predictable. (The
loose-cannon-cop versus his by-the-book-superior scenes has been done to death,
and "Public Enemy" unfortunately has to take a stab at it as well.)
There is something very human about "Public
Enemy" that doesn't seem obvious at first glance. It's Kang's openness
about his corruption, his instincts to save people and be a "protector of
the people" that makes him so endearing despite all of his vices (and he
has many). In the end, the film works because it's found such great balance in
everything it does.
Let me also say that "Public Enemy" is one of the
funniest movies I've seen to come out of South Korea. I hope this is a new
direction for that industry, because my experiences with previous South Korean
"comedies" have been rather lackluster and disappointing. ("Surprise"
comes to mind.) As a final aside, "Public Enemy" is also what the
Robert De Niro movie "Showtime"
tried to be, but failed.
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