Mixed Messages (Why Make the Movie?)

Rating: 2/10 (17 November 2017)

It seemed as if this film was meant to have viewers arrive at a deep, introspective consideration for human life, but it fails miserably by missing the compassion within the death by public execution that takes place.
When we see remorse in the passengers for their act of killing a murderer (someone who should be killed), we are lead to believe they have done something wrong; that they should not have held him accountable for his actions. This is evident by one women's attempted suicide after they had been discovered and also by the inspector's inability to be content with the ending (once it is fully revealed).
The story really falls apart when we compare the inspectors quotes from the beginning and end of the movie. When the villain asks him for protection, the inspector refuses on the grounds that he "detects criminals, not defends them." He even says something to the effect of "you want to deal with gangsters, you will suffer the consequences."
At the end of the movie, however, he clearly has lost his marbles because he says, "sometimes the scales of justice are unbalanced; may we all find peace with it." If he really was as astute and rational as he was portrayed to be, he would have realized that their actions put the scales back into balance. There was an injustice committed and the real bad guy was previously running free until they stopped him. There were prolonged consequences for the man, and they had caught up to him.
The passenger's actions rectified the unpaid/delayed punishment and now they can move on with closure. It's as if the man representing law and order would have preferred to let the killer go. This film could have been a great argument for how sentencing someone to death can be a loving act that truly magnifies the value of life. Instead, it sunk into a black hole of moral relativism, where the protagonist is confused with right and wrong.
Make up your mind, Hollywood! You can't simultaneously value innocence and condemn justice!