Virtue And Violence

Rating: 9/10 (8 July 2006)

This remarkable film is in its very strange way a very strange one, namely: I have never seen a movie so utterly devoid ov originality. Everything here in the story, the play, the direction is simply perfectly congruent with convention. Simultaneaously, the film has it all: not one motif, one role, one theme, not one cliché of Melodrama missing. And the product is just as flawless and as perfect as this very conformity.
This remarkable movie is 0% Art and 100% Craft; and, believe me, it IS a Masterpiece. I think 9/10 is the obvious evaluation here.
No plot line needed; its exactly a mean destillated out of zillions other similar stories. I'll restrict myself to a brief discussion of the ethical aspect, the aestethical criticism rendered lucidly enough above.
There's a peculiarly shameless quality about this film's wooing utterly primitive male and youthful instincts. Few words needed here. These thugs are heroes, no doubt about that. This is violence idealized and romanticised. It would be cheap to anathemize it from some standpoint t of "humanism" or... well, you know, conventional ideology stuff like that - but this I'm not gonna do.
The film is what it is; and life is what it is, reality is what it is, and people are what they are, wherever we like it or not. I prefer suspending the ethical perspective altogether. This is a great film.
BUT: don't let yourself be carried away by it. Keep distance, stay detached, see it, reflect on it in authentically personal integrity and autonomy, and evaluate it for what it really is; and you will have a great time of cinema and entertainment, and understanding as well, believe me, I can guarantee that.