A Man of Reason: Manslaughter A'Plenty, Reason Not So Much
By Liz Braun
Rating: B
Leaving a life of crime isn’t as easy as it sounds.
That’s the premise of A Man of Reason, an action entry about a violent felon determined to lead a “normal” life. The film was first viewed here at TIFF 2022.
Directed by and starring Korean action hero Jung Woo-sung, the film concerns one man’s determined path after his release from prison.
Su-hyuk (Jung Woo-sung) finds redemption is a rough ride in A Man of Reason
Su-hyuk (Jung) has spent a decade behind bars. When he leaves prison, he finds someone has left him a gift: his old car is parked outside. He goes at once to the home of his former girlfriend, and discovers that he has a little daughter he didn’t know existed. Finding out about her strengthens his resolve to reform and never return to his criminal ways.
Hard on the heels of this touching scene, we go back in time to a club massacre involving Su-hyuk knifing people in the dark by the light of a flashlight. It’s an extraordinary scene, frenetic and terrible, with only the zig-zag movements of the flashlight and some slashing sounds to intimate the violence that can’t be seen in the dark.
This incident, apparently, is what got our hero 10 years in prison. How Su-hyuk turned from cold-blooded killer to family man is never really explored, but maybe in jail there’s a lot of free time for thinking.
Su-hyuk finds out that the gift of his beloved car waiting outside the prison was a gesture from his former crime boss (Park Sung-woong). As is usually the case, neither the boss nor anyone else in the old gang really wants to let Su-hyuk go. Worse yet, some suspect him of starting a new gang of his own.
Before long, there’s a goon (Kim Nam-gil) gunning for Su-hyuk, determined to kill him. We’ve already met this particular bad guy at a church conflagration. He’s an arsonist and a killer with a Joker-esque demeanour and a Woody-Woodpecker laugh. His girlfriend (Park Yoo-na) is an explosives specialist.
None of this presents much of a problem for Su-hyuk, who has maintained his assassin skills despite that new attitude and a decade in the slammer. However, when the goon's girlfriend kidnaps Su-hyuk’s little daughter, all bets are off. Su-hyuk must set aside his interest in a new, squeaky clean life long enough to knock some heads together.
What follows are beautifully choreographed fight scenes, car crashes, explosions, gun-play (some of it with a nail gun), a stupendous car-chase through a tunnel with incendiary devices all around, and mayhem in general, all of it beautifully made and big fun to watch.
What isn’t happening, alas, is any kind of emotional investment from a viewer. Brilliant though the action scenes are, shouldn’t one be watching them from the edge of one’s seat? Su-hyuk is as stoic a reformed bad guy as the genre demands, but oddly unmoved by a tragedy or two along the way and almost impossible to read.
The real villains have a cartoonish element to them that undercuts the drama and makes it tough to wish for their comeuppance. And it's not easy to root for the hero. Or anyone.
At any rate, you’ll be entertained. What you won’t be is transported, and that’s kind of the goal.
A Man of Reason. Directed and co-written by Jung Woo-sung and starring Jung, Kim Nam-gil, Park Sung-woong, Kim Jun-han and Park Yoo-na. A Man of Reasonis in theatres July 5 and on VOD July 9.