Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Hollywood Makes a Point: Drones Kill Softly From a Distance

Joe Osmundson emails:
Thought you guys would like to hear this on the latest Brad Pitt Movie.

Call me a simpleton, but I have a hard time seeing the sub-contextual meanings in films.  This film had one I could even pick up on.  The movie isn't so great because it seems so unnatural at times, almost like some of the actors are forcing it.  Much like how the hidden meanings are pretty well forced on the audience.

Its the first swipe at Obama in a Hollywood film I have seen.  It opens with what I am told are noises of drones (you know those predator ones flying over Pakistan) and with some Obama 08 campaign speech.   They show A McCain billboard next an Obama one, but I don't remember hearing McCain on the radio in the movie.  I heard Paulson and Bush, whose words made me angry (I had forgotten how awful that time was in the fall of 08). 

Here is the choice part.   Pitt's character has a policy of not to killing anyone he knows when he can see their face up close and personal.   His line is:

They cry, they plead, they beg, they piss themselves, they cry for their mothers. It gets embarrassing. I like to kill 'em softly. From a distance  
I thought that was close to the drone warfare the president is so fond of today, especially since nobody likes to talk about the drone killings.

The movie ends during another "wonderful" Obama speech (his acceptance of the nomination I would guess).  Pitt's character (Jackie Cogan) makes some really good initial cracks about the speech and the movie ends on this one.

Obama: [...]to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one... 
Driver: You hear that line? Line's for you. 
Jackie Cogan: Don't make me laugh. One people. It's a myth created by Thomas Jefferson. 
Driver: Oh, so now you're going to have a go at Jefferson, huh? 
Jackie Cogan: My friend, Thomas Jefferson is an American saint because he wrote the words 'All men are created equal', words he clearly didn't believe since he allowed his own children to live in slavery. He's a rich wine snob who's sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So, yeah, he writes some lovely words and aroused the rabble and they went and died for those words while he sat back and drank his wine and fucked his slave girl. This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community? Don't make me laugh. I'm living in America, and in America you're on your own. America's not a country. It's just a business. Now fuckin' pay me. 

Off course The lefties at slate don't like it very much as you can see here

I am not sure I really recommend anyone run out and see the movie immediately.  It's mostly predictable, boring at some points, down right over top vulgar in others, and probably too bloody for quite a few folks in the action scenes.  But hey, there was nothing worth watching on TV and I sure as heck wasn't going to Lincoln.

I am sure some people are going to say that the thing about the movie is the parallels between how the economy, Wall Street, and this underworld show that capitalism is just awful.   There is no evidence of real capitalism.  They even have Glenn Beck (I think) pointing out Hank Paulson, the Treasury Secretary, used to be the head of Goldman Sachs.  But some people do get real capitalism and real fascism confused often.

The only clear analogy is drones kill softly from a distance and so does the main character.  The contract killer (life taker via drone) at the end demands more money.  I think it is safe to say there is definitely the implication of a possible act of aggression to retrieve the money he demands.  But isn't that way too close to a realistic parallel for Hollywood?
For the record, the Director is Andrew Dominik
Writers: Andrew Dominik (screenplay), George V. Higgins (novel)



4 comments:

  1. This review is a massive stretch. This movie was one of the worst pieces of shit I've seen in many years. It was a LOT of talking with dialog written trying to be cleaver, but in fact being too cleaver by half. It was two hours of drudgery followed by 30 seconds of Brad Pitt equating capitalism/business with violence in a typical left-wing "capitalism is just every man for himself" moment.

    Pitt's character's statement about America is not to say that we should be individuals. It's exactly the opposite. The message is that we should be drones. We *should* be one country united in communist panacea.

    This movie was total drek.

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  2. So the slander against Th. Jefferson is something we should celebrate? There is no evidence that Th. Jefferson fathered any child with Hemmings or any other slave girl. In fact it is far more likely to have been his brother who fathered the Hemmings rabble. But Hollywood now accepts fable as fact, to an end of course, that America is and always has been illegitimate. Which is Comrade Obama's core belief.

    Too many on the right now seem to embrace this same belief in America's illegitimacy since its founding.

    Don

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  3. I can't be certain (Hollywood types that aren't 100% socialist are cagey) but I have read that both Pitt and Jolie are rather libertarian. Jolie tried for years to get Atlas Shrugged made.

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    1. Brad Pitt is also pro-liberty when it comes to gun ownership.

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