DEATHNOTE, the popular manga series gets its obligatory Hollywood remake. While taking liberties with the source material, it works less like a faithful adaptation and more like a alternate universe scenario of "what if a book that is able to exert supernatural control over anyone whose name is written in it, leading up to their deaths, ends up with a typical American teenager?".
Light Turner is that teenager. He is the bullied loner from a broken family, the under appreciated smart kid sitting by himself in the corner. The law has failed to bring his mother's killer to justice, the education system has failed to punish those that pick on him daily, all around him Light is faced with a world of injustice. Enter the death god Ryuk (an immaculately rendered CGI creation with performance by William Defoe) and the titular Deathnote. Ryuk is the devil on Light's shoulder tempting him to use the power of the Deathnote for selfish means.
It sets up a familiar tragedy of a young person pushed to the edge by unfairness, given the power to change things, and who ultimately abuses said power to take his anger out on the world. This is the familiar stereotype of school shooting perpetrators as sensationalized by the media and Light is set up specifically as such a character. The performances by Nat Wolff (Paper Towns) as Light and Shea Whigham (Boardwalk Empire) as his father help sell Light's plight and set up his expected eventual fall.
However, director Adam Wingard tastefully plays with and eventually subverts this expectation. Though Light does test out the deathnote's power against the aforementioned bully, and uses it again to send his mother's murderer to a nasty gruesome end, he ultimately tries to reject Ryuk's temptation of absolute power over others' fates. It isn't the idealistic "with great power comes great responsibility" shtick of superhero comic books but neither is it the nihilistic trope of absolute power's corrupting influence. This middle ground makes Light more relatable and is a much appreciated deviation from the source material. Where Light Yagami of the manga and the Japanese Deathnote movie was this cold, haughty sociopath with a god complex, Turner, in all his social awkwardness, genuinely regrets his decisions to use the Deathnote, with much of the movie being about him trying to avoid being found out, making the wrong choices as any teen in a panic would, and ultimately escalating the situation by mistake.
But things aren't so straightforward. Into Light's life comes manipulative girlfriend Mia Sutton who's ambitions for the Deathnote extend beyond just simple payback. Under Mia's influence, Light starts killing any suspected criminal based on the news. They create the persona of "Kira", Japanese mispronunciation of "killer", to divert police suspicion. Kira's supernatural killing of criminals splits the world; while unlawful many support what they see as justice in an unjust world. Complicating the matter further is when Light's policeman father gets involved in the investigations into the killings, and a mysterious super genius detective named L takes on the case.
Now this second half when L comes along is where things get shaky. I get the sense that on one hand we have this deeply personal look at the birth of a sociopath and subsequent subversion of said villain's journey by focusing on Light himself, yet on the other hand we are tied down to the plot beats of the original manga. That means a Kira cult, a convoluted cat and mouse game between L and Light, new rules for the Deathnote, memory loss as a means to be absolved from all suspicions, etc. The generally over the top nature of the original manga just does not match the more grounded "Everyman" tale in the movie.
While Light's dilemma of trying to shake off Mia's manipulations, evade capture, and plan an outrageous series of events to get away scot free is thrilling and tightly plotted, the movie takes a weird tangent to explore L's origin. L, played by Lakeith Stanfield (Get Out), is amazing. His demeanor, body language, everything is right out of the original manga. How he slowly loses it after being outsmarted time and again by Light is also well done. But the whole tangent storyline to explore his origin may have been better left to a spinoff.
One thing that got lost in the translation was that the original source material brings up philosophical and moral dilemmas, questioning the rights and wrongs of its characters' actions. This movie focuses squarely on Light and his own struggles with the escalating situation he finds himself in. This makes the movie less deep than its Japanese counterparts.
Despite its ups and downs, I enjoyed DEATH NOTE. Like a combination of Donnie Darko and Final Destination, DEATH NOTE is suitably suspenseful, well cast, and boasts great shots courtesy of Adam Wingard making this low budget movie look much better than it ought to. Combined with the music and the cinematography, this is a loving tribute to 80s and early 90s teen horror movies with both the pros and the cons of what that entails.
