A Hard Day

A Hard Day

“A hard day” centers on Detective Go Gun-Soo (Lee Sun-Kyun), whom one person tells, “You have an interesting fate.” In this propulsive thriller where it is best not to ask too many questions the most important thing is forward motion.

It’s a movie Liam Neeson and Jaume Collet-Serra might have made together, with the unlikely action star of “Non-Stop” or “Run All Night,” so if they’re smart, they’ll snatch up the remake rights as you’re reading this. Like a Neeson vehicle at its best, “A Hard Day” has a pace that should keep you from dwelling on or being too bewildered by its more preposterous or nonsensical aspects. The eyes will roll only occasionally. Mostly, it works.

“A Hard Day” doesn’t waste time on set-up. On the way home in the rain from his mother’s funeral one night, Detective Go hits a man who steps out in front of his car and cracks his windshield before falling dead into a pool of blood. One more bit of drama is more than the already beleaguered detective can take an internal affairs investigation is tearing up the station and putting everyone on edge so he stuffs the body in his trunk and drives away. Then he turns a corner right into a drunk driving checkpoint, and things start to get weird.

This early scene also sets up what kind of movie “A Hard Day” is, as some incompetent police work culminates in tasking and pepper spraying: It’s a dark comedy thriller that’s less about making any sort of social statement than keeping you entertained for two hours.

Now Go has to figure out how to get rid of another corpse while his mother’s casket is being prepared for burial nearby. He has an idea: Where better to hide a body than in another body? Problem solved? Kim Seong-Hun’s twisted, smart sense of humor kicks in as the transfer of the corpse from trunk to casket involves a half-dozen yellow balloons and a remote-controlled toy soldier. I could not even begin to explain it. You will just have to see it.

Go makes it back to the station just in time for his day to get much worse: The man he hit, he learns, was wanted for murder, which gives Go that classic movie actor look of “this is not going to end well” for pretty much the rest of the movie. They are now hunting for a man who has already been killed by one of them in a hit and run. We have not seen that before. And then Go gets the phone call.

Someone knows what he did. And he wants that body back badly.

“A Difficult Day” is filmed in many tight close-ups which are supposed to increase suspense, though sometimes the method seems too exaggerated. Throughout most of the movie Lee Sun-kyun takes advantage of its closeness and fastness. Being shown worked up and bewildered a lot he’s never completely on top of things but he keeps us interested and so does the writer/director who doesn’t let up on what could have been a slow-moving film. Once again, much like “Non-Stop” or “Run All Night,” it hides narrative weaknesses behind momentum. A Propulsive Thriller, if you will. You’re just meant to get carried away by it all. Don’t question.

What I appreciate about this morally ambiguous protagonist is that he isn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but also not the dimmest one either. He screws up a lot. Thinks he’s way tougher than he actually is (there’s a great moment where his nemesis pretends to be hurt more by him after taking some punches that speaks volumes about both characters) and manages to take two steps back for every one forward like any good Coen Brothers hero.

It is kind of unfortunate that “A Difficult Day” has four endings each sapping its energy more than the last one did before it; enough with those already! The first ending comes at around an hour and a half into it and would’ve made for a nice little thriller then there’s still over twenty minutes left. And there are some cool things happening during that final act but it all feels very much like overkill at this point maybe Neeson can trim some fat off of Collet-Serra’s version.

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