“Broker” stars Song Kang Ho (Parasite) as a struggling laundromat owner who turns to being a baby broker to pay his debt to local gangsters. He and his partner take babies from a church baby box and try to sell the little ones to suitable families. When one of the mothers returns and the cops start following them, their lives get complicated.
After winning the Palme d’Or in 2018 for “Shoplifters”, Japanese writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda made a film in France (“The Truth”) and now one in Korea. Both mediocre. This is another miss for Kore-eda; dull and maudlin at turns, “Broker” is a very American-influenced road trip movie by the Japanese filmmaker, so much so that I wouldn’t be that surprised if a Hollywood remake does eventually occur.
Then again, why even remake it? We’ve seen this story before. We know that the plot will turn to the mother having a reversal of emotions and wanting to keep the baby, and that the baby brokers she travels with will feel the guilt of their trade.
There’s a surplus of subplots as well, including gangsters, a mysterious murder, and police monitoring our lead protagonists. These cops decide to wire the mother so that she gets a more lenient sentence for killing the abusive baby’s daddy. Of course, one of the cops gets emotionally invested, hesitation starts looming, will she actually put them behind behind bars?
Maybe this three-adults-and-a-baby premise may have worked better if done in Kore-eda’s native tongue, but Korean culture is too westernized to not have this one remind you of a studio movie. Of course, If anyone can make this familiar narrative work it’s Song Kang-ho, and he did win the Cannes Best Actor prize for his performance — mixing both comedy and drama.
Song still can’t solve the implausibilities that occur in Kore-eda’s screenplay, the all-too-neat twists and turns that lead to a cozy finale, and the saccharine-inducing taste that is left in your mouth in its coda. This is a Kore-eda that means to be a crowd-pleaser, but in the worst possible sense of the term. [B-/C+]
Bassim Tariq was the first one in the chair. The "Mogul Mowgli" director spent two years building out the Mahershala Ali vehicle before exiting in 2022, and he's now letting the air out on this one.