Hello and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks, a weekly series hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves where you share three movies to fit the theme of the week each Thursday.
This week's theme is foreign adaptations aka movies adapted from one language to another. It's not difficult to find such a film, but finding a great one is a whole different story. For that reason my picks for this week are one great and two bad.
The Departed (2006)
Adapted from the Japanese film "Infernal Affairs", it is the story of two different yet similar men: a young undercover cop who infiltrates the mob syndicate, and a young criminal who infiltrates the state police as an informer for the syndicate. The film is engaging, filled with action and suspense, and not only it lives up to the original, but it's slightly better thanks to more depth of the characters and better dialogue.
Dinner for Schmucks (2010)
Remake of the French comedy "Le dîner de cons", it follows a man invited by his superiors at a dinner celebrating the idiocy of their guests. For this reason he befriends an idiot because he would make the perfect guest. While the original is an hilarious and witty comedy help up by two great actors, this American version starring Paul Rudd and Steve Carrell is silly and not funny, a quite embarrassing film.
Oldboy (2013)
Adapted from the Korean film "Oldboy", it tells of a man kidnapped on the day of her daughter's birthday and imprisoned for 20 years. After his release, he will try anything possible to find the man who did this to him, but things don't go as planned. The brutal, disturbing yet sweet and moving story of vengeance has been transformed into a shallow and disappointing film by Spike Lee - I actually can't believe he did this. At least Josh Brolin did a pretty good job and Samuel L. Jackson was great.
So there they are. What three films would make your list?
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