Tunnel is a movie that I wish had a stronger directorial vision behind it. The concept of someone being trapped under a pile of rubble and rocks for two hours may sound like a daunting challenge - more than 'may', it is. To hold our attention and to mount suspense and create a connection to that character (especially if we don't know him, or her, super well before-hand) when it is a one-person show is difficult. Major pros like Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away) or Danny Boyle (127 Hours) can get to the nitty gritty by a) having a tremendous actor to anchor it, and b) to have some very distinctive settings or moments that let us out of the place we're stuck with the characters at (in one case a deserted island, in another trapped also by rocks). Put these two things together and you may have a vision of solitude and simple goddamn survival that can keep the audience's attention.
In Tunnel, it's an OKAY type of that movie, but its first half gets bogged down through some comedy (yes, comedy, or what can come close to it here), and a side story where our main character, Jung-Soo (Ha Jung-Woo), already caught after driving through a tunnel that collapses all over the car, discovers a woman is trapped in her car (along with a very cute pug). It does add some humanity to the character, showing his kindness over little things like how to space out water, but she also doesn't last in the story very long and her impact on the outside world - this is one of those 'Timmy Fell Down the Well" stories, of course, so the media covering it and the authorities and construction people working at the site become a whole entity unto themselves - isn't strongly felt.
If it had been it could've added to something, but this is making me put aside what I did like about the film, which is primarily the second half. In the first section, as our Kia Dealer is still under (yes, he tells some random people, oddly unprompted, he works as a Kia dealer because... uh, product placement I guess?) it has the occasional odd jokey moment. Not necessarily a terrible thing, some levity or moments of lightness can help to punctuate the potential-certain doom this man is facing, but it's kind of clumsily done. Maybe it's funnier to South Korean audiences than to me, where things like a construction man picking up an egg after it's fallen on the floor due to a part of a roof collapsing from rain and eating it. For me, I kept thinking 'Uh, hey, guys, tension, suspense, start mounting it, come on!'
But then we come to where things take a bad turn - it might even be more like 2/3rds of the way through (this is a 126 minute movie and it feels every moment of it) - as characters screw up, and in a way that no one is fully to blame for (outside of some gross incompetence, but not anything to get furious about), and it looks like it'll take longer and longer to dig our man out. And this moment is excellently played by Jung-Woo, when he is told the terrible news, and all the while his wife (Doona Bae, who you might remember from such films as CLOUD ATLAS, yes, that's her as the main girl, and JUPITER ASCENDING, so also some highly expressive, spot-on talent) is off to the side also angry and sad and embarrassed as a bad situation becomes worse and worse.
I saw this movie as a double feature of my own making at the local cineplex where before the other film was Train to Busan. That is certainly the better film, but I was struck by how in both films, but this one it's stronger without being too in-your-face about it, there's this sense that humanity MUST work together, or things will simply fall apart (metaphor much with the tunnel collapsing and the, oh, nevermind). When it becomes a more dire story, the director Kim Seong-Hun, steps up his game for dramatic tension and down-to-the-last-OMG-minute suspense, and it picks up greatly. I didn't completely dislike those moments early on where they try to humanize everyone, but the tone felt off in a way that was a little distracting, also with that side plot that has affecting moments (how can it not with a woman trapped in her car), but the mood wasn't kicking, it lacked an energy or momentum for our hero that we could dig in to as well (or perhaps that sense of 'huh, will he really get out of this or not?) It's a decent and competently made movie with some excellent moments; if you're a connoisseur of Korean cinema I'm sure it'll make your day or night. It also doesn't make for essential thriller viewing either.
