Parents' Guide to Humint

Uneven but ultimately rewarding, this South Korean spy thriller takes a long time to become the movie it promises to be. Humint feels like two different films clumsily pressed together; the first half is slow, murky, and conversation-heavy, built around suspicion, shifting loyalties, and the question of who is lying to whom, while the second half gives itself over almost completely to action. Sadly, the two halves don't fully belong to the same movie, which makes it a frustrating experience to sit through.

The first half is greatly helped by Shin Sae-kyeong as Chae Seon-hwa, and as we move closer to her, the film becomes more coherent, grounded, and emotionally compelling. The actress is excellent, carrying the weight of a character caught at the center of competing truths and her own survival. There is also something subtly fascinating in the way the story works as a political allegory about South Korea and North Korea without turning that into a lecture. The movie does make the familiar mistake of centering a man's guilt over a woman's suffering, but by the time the second half fully kicks in, it becomes so thrilling and so confident on an action level that a lot of its earlier weaknesses start to recede.