‘Emergency Declaration’ Review – Basic Plot Nearly Saved By Great Acting And Directing

A terrorist boards a plane. The police find out but just seconds too late. The terrorist executes his evil scheme leaving the passengers to die. One of the passengers is the police sergeant’s wife. Another is a former pilot and single father who must overcome his trauma to save the day. Such is the plot of Emergency Declaration, a Korean thriller that had its US theatrical premiere on August 12. What may be a basic plot is made up for in the film’s details: creative camerawork and editing paired with compelling performances.

Led by Parasite (2019) star Song Kang-ho, who plays the courageous and desperate sergeant, the ensemble cast allows each character to have strong narratives that underscore the film’s dramatic tension. Kim So-jin and Lee Byung-hun are particularly strong as the dutifully stoic flight attendant and single father ex-pilot, respectively.

Director Han Jae-rim does an interesting and effective job at communicating the perilousness of the nightmarish scenario by refusing to glorify its action sequences and portraying the films heroes as desperate actors. For an example, the viewer takes the point-of-view of a backseat passenger for the entire duration of one chase-scene, resulting in a discombobulating experience rather than one of suave Bond-esque action.

Similarly, the editing works to draw a parallel between the helpless experiences of the passengers on the plane and the desperate government agents working on the ground. Promising discoveries back in Korea are amplified in the otherwise hopeless airplane, resulting in passenger chaos and making it all the more disappointing when they inevitably don’t pan out.

One of the prime mediators in this ground-plane relationship is the news, whom the passengers have complete access to despite canonically expensive and slow internet service on-board the plane. The media is portrayed as an agitator, and reports frequently break important failures before government officials do on the plane. This naturally creates substantial distrust and utter mayhem.

In one report, the news compares the terrorist to real-life murderers, including the mass shooter in Las Vegas who took the lives of 60 people in 2017. Reflecting the media’s treatment of these tragedies, the film’s fictional news reports often over-analyze and thereby glorify the man behind the attack. The film, on the other hand, nearly disregards its mass-murderer, focusing instead on the far more sympathetic and interesting lives of those whom he attempts to ruthlessly kill. Without this fictional media to contrast it, the film’s treatment of the villain would feel lazy, for the villain almost completely lacks a motive. However, because of this comparison, the film astutely points out the problem in these sensationalist media portrayals of terrorists.

Further, the film’s scenario at times feels reminiscent of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The terrorist’s weapon of choice is an aerosolized virus that vaguely looks like a much more contagious and faster-acting version of Ebola, ultimately causing its victims to cough up blood and hemorrhage everywhere. Beyond the obvious depiction of passengers wearing masks, the response from the government parallels that of the early pandemic. The international community refuses to help, and passengers debate whether it would be ethical to risk exposing their loved ones and get off the plane even if not doing so would result in death. Again, the film’s focus on individual victims proves important here, as remote government agents decide their fate based on political appearances.

The straightforward and familiar action plot of the film is a not insignificant issue. Any film longer than 120 minutes invites itself to scrutiny about its runtime, and Emergency Declaration sits at a bloated 148. After a while, its twists begin to feel too numerous and unbelievable, and in a film that takes itself as seriously as this one, they don’t work as they did in Speed (1994). These twists start to have holes, too, and glaring errors (such as the passengers’ unfailing internet and occasional phone call access) begin to be impossible to ignore.

I’m glad this film took a more intellectual approach to an otherwise exhausted micro-genre in its media and COVID-response commentary. Its focus on individuals led by strong performances was almost enough to make up for its extremely derivative and error-filled plot that dragged on far too long.

Emergency Declaration is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of Well Go USA.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHN9bN7PyLA]