Lumberjack the Monster

"This is my first Takashi Miike film (gasp!) and while I know I should have started with Audition or Itchi The Killer I thought the premise sounded cool and I wanted to catch it while it was on Netflix. The verdict? I thought it was fun and a bit far fetched but I was still engaged which I think is a testament to Takashi since this plot could have degenerated into an outright comedy in a less competent director’s hands. There’s a couple of things that I think could have made this film better though. One is the run time. This is a two hour film that feels a bit long at times and I think a lot of that was due to exposition in the beginning of the movie involving a car chase that essentially tells the audience that our protagonist is a psychopath / sociopath in an extremely overt way that just wasn’t necessary. It was just dumb. The other was this movies beliefs on psychopath or those that lack empathy as being almost super human. It’s again over the top and could have achieved the same result being a little more subtle but at the same time I enjoy that kind of stuff sometimes and like I said this is more of a fun psychological thriller. I recommend. "