Get the bad guys!
There's an 8.26 David Halbfinger N.Y. Times piece that searches for meaning in two noteworthy rage-and-revenge movies -- Neil Jordan's The Brave One (Warner Bros., 9.14) and James Wan's Death Sentence (Fox Atomic, 8.31) with Jodie Foster and Kevin Bacon, respectively -- as well as the less prominent Descent, which starred Rosario Dawson, and a British revenge movie called Outlaw, which starred Sean Bean.
The piece asks whether audiences today might be ready for a new wave of cathartic, rough justice at the movies. Halbfinger quotes original "Death Wish" author Brian Garfield as saying that “people are just sort of simmering with the kind of anger that they can’t really define, and this kind of movie gives them some kind of release." But this anger seems incompletely defined by Halbfinger also.
Street crime, after all, is not the nationwide virus or pestilence it once seemed to be. New York City is thought to be a much safer place it was in the early '70s, when Garfield wrote the book, or when the Michael Winner-Charles Bronson film of Death Wish came out in '74.
I think these films are about getting revenge upon a general "themn" -- an unruly, assaultive, disenfranchised element that would puncture our indoor-shopping-mall complacency and invade our air-conditioned membranes inside our SUVs. This includes not just criminals but the whole Middle Eastern crew..anyone lobbing grenades in our direction. In this sense the best post-9.11 revenge movie of them all has been Tony Scott's Man on Fire -- a movie that Bush and Cheney probably loved, and which I genuinely respected as one of the best right-wing propaganda films ever made.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on August 27, 2007 at 10:14 AM
comment #1
Mark
says ...
The best post-911 revenger movie? Reign of Fire. Hyberanting dragons (sleeping cells) come and spread fear and fire abroad. Society turns to cigar-smoking texan to take them down at magic hour.
The movie was so great that Speilberg remade it using tripods instead of dragons.
Posted by Mark
at August 27, 2007 11:32 AM
comment #2
Me
says ...
I get the random e-mails of a website for a large organization, and it is amazing how many people write in with perceived sleights that have escalated in their minds to the height of conspiracy. I think there is a feeling out there that people believe that the world and an unseen "them" is out to get them personally. So many people believe they are victims and have a wish-fulfilment thing with a victim who strikes back.
Posted by Me
at August 27, 2007 11:52 AM
comment #3
Monument
says ...
I think it has to do with a feeling of helplessness. We are told day after day that we are under the threat of terror, no specific enemy, just terror. I think it's cathartic to watch films in which there is a specific enemy and the victim is able to exact specific revenge, and when it's over, it's really over.
Posted by Monument
at August 27, 2007 12:11 PM
comment #4
giantman
says ...
We witnessed the same rash of films post-vietnam, which I believe had more to do with it than rampant crime, and we're seeing the same thing today.
I'm hearing reports that audiences are cheering the scene in THE KINGDOM when the US lets the bad guys have it. The interesting thing is how universal the feeling is, both english and middle-eastern oriented audiences are cheering.
This trend will continue as long as we continue to feel powerless about the events in the Middle East.
Posted by giantman
at August 27, 2007 12:14 PM
comment #5
Mark
says ...
don't overthink. Every once popular genre will eventually return to the radar regardless of the current socio/political pulse of the country. just like fashion. Since 2000, we've already recycled the WWII genre, the musical, the teen slasher film, and now the western and revenge-vigilante.
it may be fun to rationalize, but the reason is simple. we like something, it becomes overexposed, we then hate, it then becomes underexposed, we eventually miss, and it then returns, and we like....
Posted by Mark
at August 27, 2007 12:33 PM
comment #6
Monument
says ...
No, you're presupposing that films don't reflect the culture which is just plain stupid.
Posted by Monument
at August 27, 2007 12:44 PM
comment #7
Mark
says ...
no more stupid than presupposing that they do reflect culture. If the man-vs.-nature disaster movies of the 70's that were recycled 10 years ago (Daylight, Deep Impact, Volcano, Armageddon, etc.) were instead made today, then it would be easy to rationlize that they were the result of a post-911 disaster plus climate-changing fear. But at the time, there was no explanation. it was just time for more disaster movies.
Posted by Mark
at August 27, 2007 1:00 PM
comment #8
T. Holly
says ...
Is Jodie seriously not playing gay in this movie? This still screams, "I'm so butch." Furthermore, why is this guy chauffeuring them around?
Posted by T. Holly
at August 27, 2007 1:37 PM
comment #9
BurmaShave
says ...
There's something I've wanted to know since this promo photo came out awhile ago: Shannon Sosamyn and John Hannah?
Posted by BurmaShave
at August 27, 2007 2:19 PM
comment #10
giantman
says ...
C'mon Mark. Movies do reflect culture, they have to, since they spring from culture. They don't always reflect immediately, since it takes time for scripts to be written, projects to be greenlit, produced, distrubuted and then seen. The disaster films of the '70s were directly related to events in culture, beginning with general unease regarding the role of technology or the failure of same to impact our lives and then they transformed into fears about radiation, toxic chemicals, et al, that were very much the focus of group fear in the late 70s. True again towards the late 80s early 90s, except this time it was science we didn't understand, genetics (Jurassic Park and others), fear of newly discovered dinosaur extinction asteroids and near-earth collisions (Deep Impact, Armageddon) and the coming rise of climate change fears (Day After Tomorrow).
This recent revival of western, action oriented film is cyclical yes, but it also stems from our powerlessness as a people.
Posted by giantman
at August 27, 2007 2:19 PM
comment #11
Josh Massey
says ...
This is all well and good, but I still don't understand why you posted a picture of Owen Wilson here.
Posted by Josh Massey
at August 27, 2007 2:25 PM
comment #12
Sean
says ...
Mark - those movies came about at a time when the media had saturated us with unspecified fear, ideas like "FIND OUT WHAT SCIENTISTS SAY MAY WIPE OUT THE HUMAN RACE..."
[smaller text] "... in 200,000 years ..." [end smaller text]
I would say that you have some good points to be made; some of what made the studios decide to make, say, 'Armageddon' was the fact that, technologically, they could. But the reason the movies hit as well as they did was that they were tapping into some subconscious mindset which was widespread across America (I would assume it translated at least partially to the rest of the world... but I don't know enough to get into that).
Posted by Sean
at August 27, 2007 2:33 PM
comment #13
Gus Petch
says ...
I can't wait to learn about the cultural driving forces behind the body swap movie craze of the late 80's (Big, Like Father Like Son, Vice Versa, etc.). Wait, let me guess: it was "our powerlessness as a people."
Posted by Gus Petch
at August 27, 2007 3:22 PM
comment #14
giantman
says ...
Well gosh, not all films stem from some sort of cultural pyscho mass consciousness, especially on an individual case-by-case basis. Some films, many in fact, simply exist to entertain and make us laugh. However, the case could certainly be made that the body swap craze movies of the late 80's stemmed from a group lack of identity following the "me" generation excess of the 80's, questioning the current lack of moral base for a different perspective, thus teaching us that we all exist as individuals and not some group mind... or not.
I sure hope my general level of sarcasm hasn't been lost in these posts, personally I think the whole idea is drivel.
I just made all of that up in other words.
Posted by giantman
at August 27, 2007 4:06 PM
comment #15
Michael
says ...
This is gonna sound weird, but here goes...
I really dig revenge movies, and I've put a lot of thought into this...and what I've concluded is that, with all of these releases (domestically, I mean), these filmmakers are all trying to land United Flight 93 safely. We all know the general outline (or arc, whatever) the flight took, but it had a shitty, heartbreaking ending. So who wouldn't want to see a film with righteous justice/vengeance being doled out and people coming through to the other side relatively intact. They kick ass, they're right to do so, and they go on to live a full, if damaged life. It's something I'd want to see, that's for sure...just me thinking out loud.
Posted by Michael
at August 27, 2007 4:39 PM
comment #16
christian
says ...
revenge drama is....drum roll...cathartic.
Posted by christian
at August 27, 2007 4:53 PM
comment #17
giantman
says ...
Works for me.
Posted by giantman
at August 27, 2007 4:58 PM
comment #18
Devin Faraci
says ...
I really only like rape-revenge films. It's much more satisfying seeing the direct victim take vengeance than the woman whose husband got killed or whatever. If someone killed your family, I can't believe it's really fully cathartic to kill them. It's hollow in the end. But if they raped you...
Posted by Devin Faraci
at August 27, 2007 5:33 PM
comment #19
le corbeau
says ...
Movies may or may not reflect the culture. It's HITS that reflect the culture.
Posted by le corbeau
at August 27, 2007 8:25 PM
comment #20
BurmaShave
says ...
I really only like rape-revenge films. It's much more satisfying seeing the direct victim take vengeance than the woman whose husband got killed or whatever. If someone killed your family, I can't believe it's really fully cathartic to kill them. It's hollow in the end. But if they raped you...
Posted by: Devin Faraci at August 27, 2007 05:33 PM
Devin, is there something you'd like to tell us? Son, it's not your fault. It's not your fault....
Posted by BurmaShave
at August 28, 2007 1:57 PM
comment #21
Ross
says ...
There's something about the genre that hits us on an animal level. I think humans in general have hatred, murder, violence bred into us and the purpose of revenge gives us the excuse to bring it out. The best film of this type I've seen lately is Dead Man Shoe's.
Posted by Ross
at August 28, 2007 9:15 PM
comment #22
kimi98
says ...
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nude+life+boy
wild+boy+nude
boy+nude+water
naked+young+boy+nude
nude+boy+school
russian+boy+nude
a+boy+photo+art+nude
little+boy+nude+a
nude+boy+sport
nude+pretty+boy
playing+nude+boy
year+boy+nude
art+boy+nude
boy+doctor+nude
Posted by kimi98
at January 12, 2008 11:07 AM