By the end of the first act of Kim Seong-hun’s South Korean thriller “Tunnel,” it’s hard not to think of “The Martian.” This is in part because the former is essentially a scaled-down version of the latter: Instead of a brilliant and resourceful astronaut, we are given an average if persistent car salesman, and instead of Mars, we have a collapsed tunnel just a short drive from Seoul. Still, at times, it’s hard not to wish you were just rewatching Ridley Scott’s wildly engaging take on a stranded man and the world fighting to rescue him.
“Tunnel” (again, much like “The Martian”) gets going almost immediately. We spend a few short minutes with Ha Jung-woo’s Jung-soo as he drives home from work to learn the key details of his life: He’s kindhearted, he’s a car salesman, and he’s a dedicated husband and father. We also learn how much battery his phone’s got, that in the backseat there is a cake, and that he’s only got two small water bottles. Knowing what’s coming, it’s easy to see the significance of these items and feel the nervous energy of wondering how he’s going to use each of these items to save his life.
The reality is, though, that he doesn’t. Not really, at least. Sure, the water sustains him, and so does the cake (for a bit). And the phone keeps him in touch with his wife (the pained Doona Bae playing endlessly grief-laden and supportive) and the director of the rescue operation Dae-kyoung (Oh Dal-su). But it only takes a few minutes of Jung-soo trapped in the tunnel to see he is nothing like astronaut Mark Watney; he is not going to “science the shit” out of anything. Which, in a way, isn’t a fair critique of “Tunnel,” in part because being trapped inside a smashed car surrounded by rubble doesn’t leave much room to do any real science. But still, Jung-soo’s passivity serves as a weight on the film; it’s endlessly more exciting to spend 126 minutes with someone inventively battling to free themselves than it is to watch someone wait.
Not that that’s all Jung-soo does. After being buried, things get progressively worse. At first he’s content to wait out the week they are estimating it will take before he is freed, but as the mistakes and bureaucratic battles pile up, his hope begins to fray — which is where Ha Jung-woo does his best work. His transformation from resigned and hopeful to defeated and broken is done in minor steps, in such a way that makes it impossible not to hurt alongside him — he is not some superhuman astronaut, but an everyman, all of us.
And it’s actually the bureaucracy entanglements that make “Tunnel” really come into its own. Not only is Dae-kyoung unable to get so much as one snowplow after a few weeks of digging have passed, but the government officials see only monetary losses in Jung-soo. Rescuing him is expensive. Halting construction on a second tunnel just over the mountain is expensive. Letting him die is pretty cheap. But while these dominos are nicely set up, they never become more than footnotes and all the potential tension is never completely tapped. Still, though, such details give “Tunnel” a bit of teeth, not to mention a bit of unfortunate realism: How much money is one ordinary life worth?
On the technical front, Kim Seong-hun’s direction is confident, and the editing as tight as a thriller needs to be. The true gem of the film, though, is Kim Tae-Sung’s cinematography. His work both inside and outside the cramped confines of the tunnel is eloquently muted and expertly framed. What’s even more impressive, though, is the use of light inside the tunnel. Jung-soo is trapped in pitch dark with only a pair of flashlights and an overhead light in his car, but Kim Tae-Sung is able to do wonders with them, perfectly capturing the claustrophobia and isolation of the situation — it’s lush, fluid work.
“Tunnel” is carried by this beauty; by slick production; and by a protagonist, passive as he may be rendered, who is genuinely worth spending time with. But too often the mechanisms of plot can be felt, the beats of the story seen, and the obvious intentions of the story heard in a line of dialogue. So, while at times it’s easy to see the great film that “Tunnel” could have been, that never stops it from being perfectly watchable thriller that it is. [B-]