Decision to Leave

Directed by Park Chan-wook, Decision to Leave follows a detective (Park Hae-il’s Jang Hae-jun) as he finds himself developing romantic feelings for the prime suspect (Tang Wei’s Song Seo-rae) in a high-profile murder case. Filmmaker Park, armed with his and Jeong Seo-kyeong’s screenplay, kicks off the proceedings with a decidedly underwhelming (and oddly off-putting) opening stretch that contains virtually nothing in the way of context, and it’s clear, certainly, that the arms-length atmosphere is compounded by a series of almost shockingly flat performances and dialogue that’s often impossibly weird and unconvincing. Decision to Leave does, beyond that point, segue into a colossally tedious, procedural-heavy midsection that’s riddled with distracting and often aggressively self-indulgent art-house visual choices, which ensures that the viewer’s ongoing efforts at connecting to the one-dimensional characters and their hopelessly dull exploits fall flat on a shockingly continuous basis. By the time the interminable, wholly unsatisfying third act rolls around, Decision to Leave has cemented its place as a frustrating and completely lackluster mystery that feels so much longer than its endless 139 minutes.

no stars out of ****