Black or white, or is there a middle ground?
A young cop is caught between two chairs. He’s working for internal affairs, and he’s a mole in another police unit where the funding comes from rich people. His boss wants him to be a mole and gather evidence that can put the leader of the other police unit in jail. So off he goes. But his past will come back to haunt him. His father died when he was a teenager, and it turns out that his father also had a secret.
The Policeman’s Lineage is directed by Lee Kyoo-man. He has directed Wide Awake (2007) and Children (2011). So, this is a competent director.
This is an entertaining movie that has a lot of information you have to take in. There’ are a lot of names, and it can be sometimes a little difficult to figure everything out.
But the movie is decent. It’s the usual story about a young cop who is caught between two chairs when he wants to be a righteous man and follow in his father’s footsteps. But as a mole, he develops feelings toward his boss. In the beginning, he doesn’t approve of what his boss is doing. He’s determined to perform his duty and gather evidence against his new boss. But he also experiences a lot of things in his new job, and that opens up his eyes to a new reality.
The movie never focuses on the characters’ private lives. It’s all work from start to finish. The only thing we see is how the father of the protagonist died, and that’s all. There’s no romance here. There are no women here. This is a man’s world, so deal with it! It’s all work and no fun.
There are a few short action scenes, but they aren’t impressive. The main focus is on the protagonist and the relationship he develops with his new boss who wears expensive clothes and drives an expensive car. And it turns out that he knew the protagonist’s father. His boss is also willing to do everything to arrest a criminal who is about to distribute a new drug that will be difficult to track down if he gets it out on the streets.
The Policeman’s Lineage is a decent cop-thriller that has some solid actors and a story that works. I was never bored, but the actor who plays the protagonist isn’t very good. He has no charisma, and his character is too gray.