Paul Magne Haakonsen
With "Codename: Jackal" (aka "Jakali onda") being a South Korean action comedy, I had all the persuasion that I needed in order to take the time to sit down and watch the movie. Especially because South Korea usually make some very impressive movies in general.However, it turned out that writer Sang-ho Oh had created a story that was somewhat slow paced, and having a fairly bland character gallery really didn't help to promote the movie in any way. And director Hyeong-jun Bae didn't really manage to procure a very satisfactory result in transferring the script to screen.I found the storyline to be incredibly slow paced to the point where I was fast losing interest in the movie, both character-wise and story-wise. And it was a real struggle to keep having focus on the movie and find the will to continue with the movie to the very end. Running at 1 hour and 47 minutes, the pacing of the movie made it seem like it was 3 or 4 hours. Yeah, it was that dull and slow.It should be said that the actors and actresses in the movie were actually doing good jobs with their given roles and characters, but it is so obvious that they are restricted by having next to nothing to work with in terms of script and character development. And it didn't really help that the characters were essentially all characters that have no appeal and are characters that the audience don't have any empathy towards."Operation: Jackal" is definitely not a movie that I will be returning to for a second time around, even with my extended love for the South Korean cinema, because it just didn't prove to be particularly interesting, entertaining or funny.
