Joo Won stars as the title character of the Netflix actioner “Carter”. This South Korean export is just one of many genre films to embrace the gimmick of jamming all the film’s action within a single continuous shot. Which, as you gather, means you get to watch Won annihilate all of his enemies, tirelessly marching through violent attackers and sanctioning lives like a used car salesman who is Practically Just Giving This Death Away. If you were to calculate the character Carter’s WAR (Wins Above Replacement) within the canon of action films, he’d be in the company of John Matrix, who singlehandedly murdered the army of Val Verde in “Commando”.
“Carter” is a technical marvel, as well as a veritable buffet of violence. Which is to say what you’d expect – of course the movie is way longer than it should be, and of course it’s more than a little dumb. These are the sorts of concessions you make as an action fan. While the “John Wick” movies were met with near-universal praise, viewers just had to accept that while most of the villain characters were allegedly killers that had trained their entire lives to do their jobs, more than a few would be dispatched immediately, often stupidly, just to give the hero an easy kill every once in a while. Similarly, when “Carter” pauses for characterization, it doesn’t offer anything an action fan has never heard before.
There is a hook here similar to “Mayhem” – a virus has broken out through South Korea, turning its victims into mindless killing machines. The better for a hero to waste them indiscriminately, of course. Carter, however, is afflicted with amnesia, and he can’t trace the faint memories he has, nor can he fully accept what’s being told to him in English by a couple of American operatives, one of them a literal Marvel hero (Mike Colter of “Luke Cage”). After killing maybe fifty of these guys with his hands, soon Carter has reason to doubt the narrative being presented to him, and wonder what kind of asset he really is.
The director, Jung Byung-gil, is known for a similarly propulsive actioner called “The Villainess” that I will review soon. But he’s smart enough to know and embrace the challenges set forth by making such a movie. Yes, he has to keep as many takes as possible, employing tricks and effects to eliminate the appearance of cuts. But he also knows he has to keep it fresh with blocking and camera placement. There are moments of sheer absurdity as we watch chaos unfold from all sorts of unique angles, armies of zombified soldiers tumbling through windows and ceilings and doors to kill the overwhelmed hero. “Carter” is exhausting and overwhelming as much as it is inventive and exciting, but it’s hard to not respect the film’s dedication to its colorful method of storytelling. This one catches fire, explodes, and makes the heroic landing, all in the same five minute span. For any action fan, it would be downright disrespectful to ask for anything more.
Since this is the second straight movie I’ve written about regarding a virus, I should write about COVID in prison. It shouldn’t surprise you that the experience was far more nightmarish than it should have been. Upon the news that the virus had spread nationwide, the units (varying sizes, though each housing a hundred or more inmates) were shut down. Outdoor recreation was eliminated, programming was shut down, and we were stuck inside with our masks. We had strict orders to wear these masks at all times, and I actually received a punishment for briefly not wearing mine (while I was actually on camera wearing it — long story). However, when staff was isolated among each other, they laughed about mask mandates and freely commiserated with each other mask-free, in violation of federal mandates.
Doctors came around in my unit to test us when it was revealed the virus had appeared within our walls. We would be in six man rooms, stacked on top of each other, living side by side. And then one day, test results had allegedly come back, and that man living alongside you had disappeared. There was a quarantine unit somewhere else where supposedly the sick people were staying. Gradually, more and more people got sick, and more and more people disappeared. I was never moved to the quarantine unit, because eventually, they declared that I was already living in a new quarantine unit. In the end, over 80% of the institution tested positive for the virus.
For the inmate population, the vaccine wasn’t mandatory. However, they allowed for a competition among the different units within the institution regarding how many of them would get the jab. The unit with the highest percentage of vaccinated would get to have a “Movie Night” with “popcorn”, a promise that meant nothing to us. Regardless, my unit ended up registering the highest vaccination rate, information given to us in 2022, long after the competition was announced.
Though we were still locked down, our unit was brought into the gym for a Movie Night. Projecting against white walls against open windows (rendering visuals impossible to discern), we sat through the recent “Mortal Kombat”. Not only did this not meet the very low bar a “Mortal Kombat” movie sets, but we were watching an edited version splicing out the gore moments, as if there’s any point to watching an edited “Mortal Kombat”. There was no popcorn.
Next, we’ll delve into a week of female directorial debuts!
A quick note…
I started this substack about a month ago, and I have to thank you for everyone that has been on the journey with me. Your views have meant all the world. I got out of the halfway house in March 2023, and this is the first thing I’ve done of which I’m proud, the first achievement I’ve had where I didn’t think any idiot could do this. Thank you for making me feel that way. And for humoring me on the few typos and grammatical adventures we’ve shared (and which I have quietly edited out of previous entries).
I have been trying to get the word out about this site, but it is difficult. I still don’t truly understand how to navigate the internet of 2024. And I have no interest in social media at my advanced age, either the emptily-depoliticized realm of Facebook or the white-supremacist gathering that Twitter has become.
So I ask you, please, tell someone about this thing. Spread the word. Tweet about it or whatever. Reach out to your neighbor, maybe they like movies, maybe they’re interested in criminal justice. Send it wherever you can. I hope I can reach more and more people every day just to let them know what incarceration means, both to the two million plus incarcerated people in America and to the people who don’t fully understand exactly what the incarcerated face.
Were any of the inmates afraid when Covid hit? Or it didn’t seem like a big deal.
Never heard of it :)