Fantasia 2024 Review: PENALTY LOOP, A Time Loop Thriller With An Exciting Twist
Jun (Wakaba Ryûya) is a man grieving the brutal murder of his girlfriend who finds his only solace in exacting revenge against her killer, Mizoguchi (Iseya Yûsuke). He meticulously plans and executes a scheme to surreptitiously assassinate the man responsible for her death, but there’s a problem. The next morning when Jun awakens, he experiences a sense of déjà vu, and he soon learns that his entire world has reset, Mizoguchi is still alive, and he has to kill him all over again. Revenge is a dish best served over and over and over again in Araki Shiji’s Penalty Loop, a dazzling time loop thriller with big ideas and stellar direction that may be one of the year’s best science fiction films.
Though the microgenre of time loop fiction has exploded over the last decade or so, Penalty Loop manages to tweak the formula enough to present something truly fresh. Indebted as much to Groundhog Day as any of the myriad darker films in this category, Araki imbues the film with a pitch-black sense of humor and genuine pathos that sets it apart from the crowd. Just when you think it’s settling into a familiar rhythm, the film takes a number of hard left turns, first into comic absurdity, and then into introspection in a way that separates it from the pack.
As Jun and Mizoguchi replay their cat-and-mouse games time and time again, it becomes clear that not only is Jun experiencing this day repeatedly, but Mizoguchi is also aware that he’s being hunted and he can’t find a way to make it stop. After a while Jun’s catharsis in the act of killing begins to lose its effect, and Mizoguchi’s fear of dying is replaced by a stoic nihilism. Why is this happening, and how does it really help? Neither can answer the question, but they trudge along, playing the game, hoping a true end comes soon.
Penalty Loop is more than just a thriller, its an examination of the concept of revenge as a whole. Araki’s script and direction combined with the beguiling chemistry between the leads evolves the film’s narrative beyond the simple mechanics of the time loop conceit. These are two characters who appear to be infinitely and inextricably linked, whether they like it or not, and their relationship inevitably matures to something far more that simply predator and prey.
With most revenge thrillers, the coup de grace is the end of the story, but Penalty Loop wonders what happens next. In achieving revenge, in completing the act is there really victory? What if nothing has changed at all, the next day comes and it is just another day. The grief is still there, the anger still exists, and the world does not care that your mission has ended, it just kept spinning.
A clever exploration of grief and the impact of violence on both the instigator and the victim, Penalty Loop presents these concepts in the guise of a sci-fi action thriller, but does it with grace. It is funny, exciting, sad, hopeful, and challenging all at the same time, and it manages all of this with a small core cast doing excellent work and incredible writing and direction from Araki. The director has crafted a genuinely electrifying calling card for himself, and Penalty Loop should be on everyone’s watch list for innovative genre cinema this year.
