Hard Hit (2021)

Synopsis

Financial consultant Lee Seong-gyu (Jo Woo-jin) is having a lousy day. He awoke while still exhausted from his relentless schedule. He’s got a big presentation at work. His boss wants him in early, so he decides to drop the kids off at school. His son’s OK with this. Daughter Lee Hye-in (Lee Jae-in) is not. Neither is his wife, who had already juggled her own work schedule to drop off the kids. Doesn’t matter … he takes them anyway.

And to add to the frustration, on the way to the school some weirdo keeps dialing him up to say there’s a bomb under his seat. It will go off if he or the kids try to leave the car. Really?

Well, turns out, yes the guy’s a weirdo … but he’s right about the bomb.

The weirdo explains that all Seong-gyu has to do to save himself and his two kids is transfer several million won into his bank account. The caller is merciless. He’s not interested in Seong-gyu’s explanations about the difficulty of assembling that amount of cash, or his plea to take his son to the ER after he’s injured (wait for it).

Hard Hit belongs to a subsubsubgenre of thrillers involving a guy in a car, or a phone booth, or perched high on a building ledge, etc. etc., who can’t move lest he die, or his family dies, or someone he loves dies, or some other tragedy befalls, etc. etc. That’s all the plot you need, and all you get until the last few minutes. The question becomes: Will the filmmakers give you a compelling ride for the next 90-some minutes as our victim finds some creative way to escape?

And in this case the answer is …

See It

Some solid performances all around. Lee Jae-in is fine as the daughter who initially ignores her dad but comes to appreciate what he’s willing to do to save her and her brother. And Jo Woo-jin does a smashing job as the dad, transitioning over the course of the movie from the proud and emotionally distant father and husband to the desperately frantic man who tries everything he knows, including unprideful pleading, to save his family.

Also notable is Jin Kyung in her smartest-cop-in-the-room role as the leader of the explosive disposal team who immediately senses that the real bad guy is not sitting in front of her.

One fault is that we know, from that first phone call, that the weirdo (Ji Chang-wook as Jin-woo) has a score to settle and that he probably won’t be the weirdo he appears to be. But we’d appreciate more foreshadowing along the way, a few dropped clues, something for us to figure out. And unfortunately, Seong-gyu doesn’t so much concoct a clever plan as he instinctively responds to each new situation.

Still, though Hard Hit is just another one of those mindless-entertainment diversions, it will keep you on edge, enough, through the tense phone calls, the somewhat realistic chase scenes, and the ending that does not grant total absolution of everyone’s sins but appears to be driving in the right direction.