Carter (2022) Review

“Carter” Netflix Poster

Director: Jeong Byeong-gil
Cast: Joo Won, Lee Sung-Jae, Jung So-Ri, Kang Yoo-Ra, Camilla Belle, Mike Colter, Yeo Dae-Hyun, Shin Woo-Hee, Kim Won-Jung, Lee Ye-Joon, Jung Jae-Young
Running Time: 133 min.

By Paul Bramhall

When it comes to modern day action cinema the influence of the John Wick aesthetic is undeniable, defined by its stripped-down approach to killing, and imbued with a kinetic energy and sense of immediacy that’s become the antithesis of the CGI filled superhero movies that usually surround their releases. As much as it’s become the standard to cite the John Wick influence in many contemporary action movies, there is one man who can claim the opposite to be true, and that man is director Jung Byung-gil. A Seoul Action School alumnus, Byung-gil’s 2017 feature The Villainess contained a fight scene that took place on speeding motorbikes, a sequence which director Chad Stahelski lifted wholesale in 2019’s John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. In my humble opinion, that doesn’t just make Byung-gil any man, it makes him “the man”.

The Villainess was set to be Byung-gil’s Hollywood calling card, and the following year he was announced to be directing his English language debut, a project called Afterburn that was set to star Gerard Butler. For whatever reason Afterburn never materialised, and it’s taken 5 years for another Byung-gil flick to arrive, landing in the form of 2022’s Carter courtesy of Netflix. Remaining in his native Korea, Carter is the name of the title character played by Joo Won (Fatal Intuition, Don’t Click), who in the opening scene finds himself rudely awakened by a group of gun totting CIA agents. With no memory of who he is, half naked, and a woman’s voice giving him orders that only he can hear, Won is about to have a pretty rough 130 minutes. Oh, and he also has a bomb in his mouth that can be detonated at any time.

The 130 minutes in question play out in real time through one continuous shot, elevating the possibilities of how far the action genre can be taken thanks to post digital blending, and resulting in an almost relentless assault on both the characters onscreen and the audiences adrenaline levels. This is a movie where within the first 15 minutes Won has already smashed out of one buildings window and through the other opposite, quickly followed by needing to hack his way through what must be a 100-strong gathering of gangsters in a bathhouse armed only with a sickle. Bear in mind he’s yet to get dressed. When Won and a bunch of attackers go smashing through a window together to the road below, only for one of them to bounce off the top of a passing car, who Won then grabs mid-air as he’s falling to cushion his own landing, you should get a sense of the kind of movie you’re in for.

Byung-gil seems to be going all out like there’s no tomorrow, and you can sense he’s having fun doing so. Far from stacking the action scenes upfront and then having the pace settle down to reveal the plot, Carter has no such intentions, with the action only becoming increasingly bombastic and entertaining, almost to the point of numbness. Amidst the frantic chaos of stabbings, gunshots, vehicular chases, and bodies being strewn left right and centre, there is some semblance of a story. We learn that Korea has been grappling with a deadly virus that gives its victims “abnormal physical abilities and violent tendencies”, and its Won’s mission to find the girl whose blood holds the secret to developing a vaccine.

The voice in Won’s head informs him that he’s an agent from North Korea where he has a wife and daughter, the latter of whom has contracted the virus and is in the early stages, so if he doesn’t find the girl soon he’ll risk losing her. However the CIA also enter the picture and insist that he’s one of them, to the point that he’s in a relationship with a fellow CIA agent played by Camilla Belle (Push, The Quiet). Can Won figure out who to trust, find the girl, fight off both the CIA and the North Koreans who question his allegiances, survive the zombie hordes, remember who he is, stop that bomb in his mouth from going off, and get rid of that Donald Trump shade of orange the makeup department have covered his face in? The answer is only yes to some of those, however it becomes clear rather quickly that plot and characterisation is not at the forefront of Carter’s priorities as a movie.

In a way that’s just as well, as the script is a clunky affair. As much as action is a visual medium, Byung-gil hasn’t quite grasped the art of cinematic storytelling as a visual medium yet, with various plot points explained via unnecessary exposition. At its most hilarious when a zombie outbreak takes place on the military plane Won and the girl are travelling on, an American reporter who’s live streaming proceeds to give a running commentary on what’s happening. Lines like “…the man is now covering himself in the girl’s blood so the infected can’t detect him!” can’t help but raise a laugh, as any sense of her own self-preservation seems to be non-existent, which at least the narrative acknowledges in her eventual demise.

To that end Carter is best approached as a visceral experience akin to watching a live action video game, and as much as this could be construed as a negative, the fact that basically all of the stunt work is done for real makes it a genuine thrill to watch. Some of the digital blending and green screen work occasionally betrays the authenticity of the action, which is a shame, however these moments are rare, and for the most part it’s a pure joy to watch. Byung-gil makes it clear from the get-go that he’s out to significantly up the ante of similar scenes from his previous work, with the ambulance sequence from his feature film debut Confession of Murder here riffed on with an epic brawl that takes place across 3 people carriers all driving side by side.

The previously mentioned motorbike scene is also revisited in a sequence that now involves over 10 of them, and at one point sees Won take a Tony Jaa running across the elephants in Ong Bak 2 approach. All of the action is captured through some truly remarkable camerawork, often achieved by use of drones, capturing angles and moving in ways most action directors probably haven’t even thought of. The viewpoint also constantly changes, from following in and around characters, to seamlessly changing to first person from various characters point of view (including at one point a zombie). It’s true that the franticness of it can become exhaustive, however what can’t be denied is the continuous creativity shown through the cinematography, with some shots pulled off for real that you’ll be convinced must be CGI. 

Needless to say Byung-gil and his stunt crew also have plenty of new action sequences up their sleeve as well, but to go into every one of them here would be a spoiler. Those hoping for a conclusion to Won’s murky past will unfortunately have to wait, as while he does eventually get his memories back, they only provide half of the answers, and the ending makes it clear a sequel is needed to wrap things up. While that means a legitimate sense of catharsis is missing in action, the abundance of action in every other regard I’m sure has Byung-gil hoping there’ll be an appetite for more, and I for one would be up for seeing how he could possibly top everything that he’s managed to cram in here. 

I mentioned at the start how the John Wick franchise has become the antithesis of big budget CGI filled superhero movies, and on the same token I’d daresay that Carter is the antithesis of the John Wick action style. Eschewing the efficient and grounded approach, and instead opting to crank literally every element up to 11, this is action filmmaking from a group of stuntmen who couldn’t care less about looking cool, they just want to see how far they can push themselves for the sake of entertainment. At the beginning of the short making of featurette that Netflix released in conjunction with Carter, Byung-gil states of the story – “He’s assigned to a mission he knows nothing about. And he fights.” I don’t think I could have summarised it any better myself, so if those 2 lines sound like a movie you could enjoy, chances are you should check it out.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7.5/10