Review Of CONFESSION OF PAIN

The new Andrew Lau and Alan Mak thriller, Confession Of Pain, opened in Malaysian cinemas this Thursday. It's a watchable but forgettable effort from the makers of Infernal Affairs. Here's a review.

On the surface, this latest film from the Infernal Affairs duo of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak may seem to be about two men and their complex duality yet again, but there seems to be a lot more going on beneath the surface. The film opens with the two lead characters, Bong (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Hei (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), fellow cops and best friends, talking about Bong’s woman trouble.

Hei likens a relationship to a homicide case – it takes time to crack it. And that just about sets up everything else in the film.

Confession begins with a stake-out during the Christmas of 2003. The cops tail a rapist, who also loves to torture women, from the nightclubs to his apartment, where they manage to stop him just in time. What follows right after that seems obligatory, in the wake of the popularity of Johnnie To’s films. I won’t reveal what it is, but it’s a baffling inclusion that has nothing to do with the rest of the story, except maybe to foreshadow the violence.

Bong then returns home to a shocking tragedy that continues to haunt him three years later. While Hei has advanced in his career as a cop and is now married, Bong has quit the force to become a private investigator and taken to the bottle. When Hei’s wife Susan’s wealthy father and his butler are brutally murdered and robbed, and Hei naturally becomes a suspect, she has to turn to Bong to help investigate the crime. When the two perpetrators turn up dead, Bong begins to suspect that there may be a third person involved.

A standard policier follows, but midway through, a shocking twist is revealed. And that is only one of a few more surprises to come.

But despite all the tricks up its sleeve, Confession Of Pain lacks the thrill-ride factor and the breathless pacing of Infernal Affairs. Although all the stylistic trademarks from that earlier film are there in the opening moments, the intrigue and suspense are not. Sure, it’s a far more psychologically intricate film than Infernal Affairs, and has great performances from both its leads, but the uneven pacing bogs the film down and the suspense waxes and wanes. While at times, the directors seem to aspire to the cat-and-mouse tension of Infernal Affairs, the result is less exhilarating and not as fun.

In the end, the real story is not so much the crime but the guilt of the men over the women in their lives. This is also partially alluded to in one of the supporting characters. The pain and despair of men, it seems, stem more from the uncertainties of love than anything else (although I fail to see the real importance of Shu Qi’s character to the story). Leung and Kaneshiro are both more than able to deliver this internal turmoil. The filmmakers attempt, not very successfully, to use this to give Confession the weight of its moral dilemma and the psychological gravitas that Infernal Affairs also had but in lesser amounts.

But what Infernal Affairs lacked, it more than made up for with other qualities that make it a real pressure-cooker of a thriller. But Confession, for all its serious aspirations, fails to engage after a while, as the investigative plot gets more convoluted and revelations are piled one on top of the other. Leung and Kaneshiro alone are enough to make this a good character-driven piece, and they’re both incredibly fascinating to watch, but the filmmakers choose a heavy plot over this.

While Lau and Mak should be credited for bringing a whole new kind of sleek to Hong Kong crime thrillers, their stylistic approaches this time cannot keep afloat a film that is obviously carrying more than it’s able.