Today, Dante Lam’s (Beast Stalker) informant thriller The Stool Pigeon hits the DVD/Bllu-ray shelves thanks to Well Go USA. The Nicholas Tse (Bodyguards & Assassins) and Nick Cheung (Beast Stalker) starring vehicle was nominated for eight Hong Kong Film Awards with Tse taking home the trophy for Best Actor.
In The Stool Pigeon, Nick Cheung plays a detective who relies on informants to break open cases and capture high profile criminals. After the cover of his last stool pigeon is blown, Detective Don Lee begins to develop a guilty conscience as he starts rethinking the way he works and deals with these informants. When Barbarian (Lu Yi), a notorious bank robber, returns to town to start a new job, Lee has to find a way to take him down and catch him in the act. He makes a lucrative offer to a soon to be released street racer, Ghost Jr. (Tse), and in exchange for the money Ghost Jr. would become his stool pigeon. Ghost accepts the offer in order to help remove his sister from a life of prostitution and to pay off his deceased father’s $1 million dollar debt. The Stool Pigeon focuses on the point of view of both the stool pigeon and the that of the detective’s as he tries to keep his pigeon alive while also trying to mend his own personal affairs with his ex-wife.
I ‘d like to start off by saying this that film is ripe for a Hollywood remake and I’ll be kind of surprised if it doesn’t get picked up. I say this because it’s a story that can be played out in any country that has an investigative police force and it covers a relationship that is rarely focused on, the emotionally vexing relationship between an officer and his informant. We normally see informants being threatened and involved in a parasitic type of relationship whereas in this film we see a combination of both parasitism and mutualism and how the relationship affects both parties involved.
As you may have already guessed, I really enjoyed watching the relationship between the stoic detective and his new, criminal stool pigeon evolve over the course of the film. In addition to that, I thought there were some really great scenes that made this gritty crime flick into a movie worth watching. One such scene is the climactic bank heist. It is during this scene where everything goes smoothly while also exploding into pure chaos resulting in an explosive and tense final 20 minutes.
The one problem I had with this movie is that it wants you to see both sides of Don Lee’s life, his career as well as personal life. It’s the extra bit about his personal life where the movie gets a bit muddled and time is wasted. It’s clear that Lam wants to show you that he is an actual person rather than a workaholic robot with his life controlled by the force, but every time we cut to Lee visiting the dance studio (his happy place) and smiling it just takes away from everything else that is going on. All I’m trying to say is that understanding Lee’s personal life, not necessarily personal interests, ends up being a waste of time and becomes just extra minutes tacked onto the film.
When you finish the feature, the film begs you to ask yourself does trust ever exist in the cooperative but conflicting relationship between the stoolie and detective? It is this question of trust where the story comes from and is what makes it such a fascinating tale from the start. The Stool Pigeon may not be the greatest crime thriller out there but it is a solid piece of cinema that can easily grab your attention, keep you engaged and will have you consistently asking questions throughout. It’s also chock full of some high octane driving scenes and an intense third act that makes it all worth your while.
While the movie itself is good in its own right, this blu-ray/dvd combo also contains Director and Actor Interviews, a Behind the Scenes Featurette, a handful of Deleted Scenes, a Photo Gallery, and an Optional English Dub. The deleted scenes expand on bits of what we see throughout the film which ends up bringing a bit more clarity as to the purpose of the scenes but are rightly deleted because the information isn’t necessarily needed for the story to make sense. The Behind the scenes featurette also offers up some more clarity through the various interviews with cast and crew members. There are 15 minutes of interviews and another 30 minutes worth of additional content for your viewing pleasure. Well Go USA didn’t skimp on the features with this title so if you’re interested in filmmaking this is a good one to check out.
Rating: An effective thriller that utilizes a fresh story in an otherwise warn out genre (6.5/10)
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