The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil (2019)
[movie]
A gangster, a cop, and a devil—clear enough, right? The film kicks off with a witty premise, and paired with classic Korean-thriller pacing, it grabs your attention pretty quickly. The deliberately exaggerated characters are also a highlight: the gangster is absurdly gangster-ish, quoting wolf metaphors and all; the cop is cocky yet stubborn, like an upgraded version of detectives from the brilliant Memories of Murder (we’ll return to this masterpiece later). The devil? A mysterious serial killer with unclear motives but a distinct style.
The stew starts out tasty, and they keep adding spices to make it richer. And this works—until halfway in. Then it begins to burn, along with my patience.
There's little action (which isn't necessarily a problem), but what's there is filmed in an annoying Hollywood style: shaky cam, frantic edits—total visual garbage. Good Korean thrillers showcase clear, long takes during action, so you understand exactly what's happening. But here? It's a mess. I caught glimpses of impressive stunt work, but you can barely appreciate it through the jittery cuts. Action value: almost zero.
Alright, how about the story? It gets more predictable as it goes along, tension fizzles out, and you never feel genuine closure. What's the killer’s motive? His backstory? What about the gangster—how'd he reach the top of his empire? Does the cop have a life beyond work (he doesn't even eat onscreen, unlike his colleagues)? Early on, the cartoonish characters allowed the plot to start fast, but midway, they're still the same cardboard cutouts. No arcs, just hints drowned out by straightforward... propaganda.
Wait—propaganda? Yep. Hear me out. Memories of Murder was a brilliant, tragicomic thriller whose core message was, "Провинциальные полицейские некомпетентны, городские - не лучше." It questioned the legitimacy of police institutions through satire and thriller storytelling. Now, what's The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil doing?
At first, it asks none of these questions—it’s just decent entertainment without deeper meaning. That's fine! But suddenly, halfway through, it shifts gear into blatant propaganda mode: "the cop is great; look how clever and unstoppable he is!" The gangster and the devil become secondary. By the end, it feels like a social ad: the cop and colleagues getting awards, all smiling, criminals locked up, the sun is shining. The only thing missing is a voiceover shouting, “Join the brave ranks of Korean police!” It's nauseatingly cheesy, undoing the movie’s earlier merits.
Even if you overlook the second half and judge it purely as a South Korean thriller (SKT), it still fails. Yes, there are genuine SKT elements—blood, a few violent scenes—but these are scraps. It’s a sanitized, simplified, mass-market version, easy to swallow for casual viewers.
Sure, the ultimate pop version of SKT is Squid Game, and if you imagine a spectrum of “SKT-ness” with masterpieces like New World or Memories of Murder on one end and Squid Game on the other, this movie would land...in the middle? Nah, sadly—it’s closer to Squid Game, albeit a bit better.