“Revenge and love aren’t equals.”
Cat-and-mouse thrillers are absolutely electric when they lock in and are successfully executed. They’re such a fascinating approach to deconstructing crime because they take something as rich as life and death or good versus evil and break it down to a philosophical chess match. Suzuki=Bakudan, based on Katsuhiro Go’s novel of the same name, is a white-knuckle supernatural/psychological thriller that feels both small and intimate yet wild and epic. It’s a stripped-down story that spends the bulk of the film in a tiny interrogation room and leaves the audience unsure whom to trust and whether their central suspect is a terrifying terrorist, a psychic hero, or something sinister that lies somewhere in the middle. It’s a confident and uniquely captivating crime thriller that goes out with a bang – literally.
Suzuki=Bakudan, which translates to “Suzuki=Bomb,” hits the ground running with an alluring premise that quickly hooks its claws into the audience and leaves them eager for answers. Tagosaku Suzuki (Jiro Sato) is a peculiar outcast who is arrested for an innocuous act of disorderly conduct. During his interrogation, he claims that he has clairvoyant abilities and proceeds to accurately predict a series of bombings in Tokyo, with more attacks on the way. The police, mystified yet skeptical of Suzuki’s abilities, engage in his daunting mind games and esoteric riddles to prevent more casualties and determine who is truly responsible for these terrorist attacks.
Akira Nagai’s careful direction and meticulous pacing turn this adrenaline-pumping mystery into a genuine magic trick. Suzuki=Bakudan operates with a freewheeling, unpredictable, and chaotic energy that leaves the audience trusting its unusual process, much like the interrogators with Suzuki. There are so many lengthy scenes that consist entirely of Suzuki running his mouth while he’s under scrutiny. These rambling monologues are slightly exhausting and elicit anxiety, but that’s the point. Suzuki=Bakudan wants its audience to be fully immersed in this unconventional experience as if they’re also stuck in the interrogation room with Suzuki.
This becomes a claustrophobic examination of identity through a darkly nihilistic lens that’s occasionally tone-deaf and glib, but still manages to engage in some compelling commentary on power, anarchy, and justice. Suzuki=Bakudan takes its time and lets these scenes breathe. There’s still a kinetic quality to the plot that’s absolutely thrilling and will have the audience leaning forward and all in. This structure creates tension by calling out and undercutting its own cliched contrivances. Suzuki=Bakudan is incredibly intentional on this front. Whenever it seems like it’s started to head into generic and lazy tropes, it will be revealed as an effort to disarm and destabilize interrogator Todoroki (Shota Sometani) – and by extension – the audience.
It’s not easy to maintain this momentum for an entire film, let alone one that’s 135 minutes long, yet Suzuki=Bakudan makes this balancing act seem easy. It creates mounting tension that snowballs into a suffocating avalanche of anxiety that makes this such an exhilarating psychological thriller. Much of the film’s credit hinges on the chameleonic performance by Suzuki’s Jiro Sato. He does revelatory work as he channels a litany of emotions and transforms right before the audience’s eyes. He fluctuates between a desperate, unassuming drunk and a terrifying loose cannon who might be the Devil.
It’s a difficult role that’s akin to the Joker or Saw’s Jigsaw. The entire film would fall flat if this performance didn’t ring true and feel natural. Sato absolutely shines, and his fearless performance elevates Suzuki=Bakudan into something special. There’s such power surrounding the film’s core question about Suzuki, his level of complicity in these bombings, and the true nature of this unusual epidemic. Suzuki=Bakudan occasionally becomes such satisfying competency porn as these detectives brilliantly decode Suzuki’s cryptic riddles that he subtly seeds through his interrogation. It’s an extremely rewarding process that keeps Suzuki=Bakudan consistently operating at a heightened tautness that could snap at any moment.
The one misstep during this disturbing and deadly trust exercise involves a lingering B-story about one of the top negotiators who is caught in the middle of a scandal. Its inclusion ultimately does serve a purpose regarding Suzuki’s alleged psychic abilities, but it’s still slightly extraneous and otherwise disconnected. Suzuki=Bakudan never reaches a point in which it wears out its welcome. However, some tighter editing and a slightly more focused presentation would help streamline the storytelling. There’s also some deeper commentary that condemns society for humanity’s selfish nature, the dark state of the world, and whether it’s even worth saving. Suzuki=Bakudan isn’t quite as effective on this front, especially since it’s unclear if anything Suzuki says should be taken at face value.
Suzuki=Bakudan captivates its audience from start to finish and continually raises the stakes, even when its most interesting character is locked in a room the entire time. Its circuitous storytelling and unreliable characters are assets rather than shortcomings. Suzuki=Bakudan wants you to get lost in this alluring haze of deception and danger. It’s a delight to succumb to Suzuki’s mind games and go on this ride in a speeding car with no brakes.
Summary
Suzuki=Bakudan is a white-knuckle cat-and-mouse masterpiece that combines intense interrogations with a psychic twist that keeps its audience guessing until the end
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