This is the problem with people's fantasy of being rich. Instead of wanting to build something people tend to want to retire at 30 to some tropical paradise and do nothing. The ending of the movie should've been Louis and Billy Ray creating their own firm and creating wealth not just for themselves but their community.
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they were having a vacation. We don't know that they weren't also running a business. No point in being rich if you can't have some fun with your money. "All work and no play . . ." As the saying goes.
shareOP is right, if this had been a documentary about what uptight "difference makers" should do with their lives. But it's a silly comedy, made solely to entertain.
shareWhy should they? As long as they weren't violating anyone else's rights, their lives were their business.
shareYou would never find Dan Aykroyd and a cutting edge satire.
shareThere are many points made here, that are confusing what's being said.
The OP does have a bit of a good point going on, but then there are the ad hominem-cretins that think 'STFU' is a good argument, or just calling someone too stupid to breathe (without explaining why they think that) is worthy of being posted. What times we live in.
I'd like to open this discussion a bit, because this world is HORRIBLE when it comes to 'wealth' and 'resources' and human needs being met, but it's also a very interesting topic when it comes to what a movie is, what movies show, what kind of message a movie sends, and so on.
On one hand, it's understandable they'd want a bit of luxury and vacation after all that trouble, and revenge after being bamboozled so much their lives were turned upside down by these evil man. Maybe our 'beloved main characters' even learned something.
They don't show they're better than Dukes by helping them out, though, they don't show compassion or caring about someone that just had a heart attack. They don't show genuine worry for people's lives or livelihoods.
They don't even know how many people's lives they just ruined by their stock market trick, how many people committed a suicide because of their actions, how many people lost their jobs,incomes, how many families suffered and so on. They just cared about getting rich, and that's it.
This message is pretty bad, it does perpetuate the myth that money can make you happy and it's OK to be a selfish, uncaring prick and just hoard gains for yourself and your friends, the heck with anyone else.
However, we are not shown what happens - they each become rich, but we are not given information as to WHAT they're going to do with their money. Everyone that suddenly becomes rich, faces the same dilemma; should they practice some kind of charity, or just be selfish about it. Should they give money to the poor, and how much would be enough? What if it becomes an endless drain?
What if giving too much money and wealth away makes themselves poor again? What if the poor just buy booze with the money?
Giving money seems easy on the surface, but as the world is a horror show anyway, if at least a couple of people can live comfortably, it's better than no one. How do you give money wisely?
If you give 100 bucks to a homeless man, chances are, they will just buy booze and drugs and tomorrow they're penniless again. It doesn't matter how much money you poor to that bottomless hole, you might end up like 'Rahat', who gave money to a drug addict, who squandered the money, slandered him, made up lies and even ragged on the _HOUSE_ Rahat gave him, and demamded to get all the donations he got, and just rode limousines and tried to impress his drug-addicted friends with the limousines and lavish lifestyle, until all the money was gone.
He dragged Rahat's reputation to the mud, everyone hated him for awhile, until the truth started to come out with proof, and I guess now he's doing fine again.
So how do you give wisely, if you can't know what the other individual is going to do with that money? What if they will finance a criminal gang or something like that? What if they will help kids become addicted to drugs? They might buy a gun and shoot people. They .. well, you get the idea.
What charity is ethical and clean of corruption? Surely not the 'colored cross', right?
You'd have to research quite a lot to find a charity worth giving to, and even then, you'd have to make the ethical, almost 'godlike' choice and judgment; THESE people are the worthiest people on the planet, screw everyone else!
You can't give to every charity, or the amount you CAN give to each will be minuscule, so why even bother?
There could be a 'community' you know, so perhaps the best thing would be to not just give money, but actually help improve some structures, like change STROADS into STREETS (watch 'NotJustBikes' videos, if you don't understand), build Shelters..
Maybe give people a Video Game Arcade that anyone can come to play either for free or very cheaply, and furnish it fully with all the best, old coin-up games from Pac-Man to Truxton / Tatsujin and the weird, cute fighters, like '(Super?) Pocket Fighters' and such.
That kind of 'structural' community care could be the way to go, even if it wouldn't benefit everyone in the world.
The best thing would be to bring the whole corrupted system down so a new, just system could be built on the ruins, but the problem with that is the REASON why things are so bad in this world; people. Hell is other people, so you'd have to basically replace the demonic, selfish and toxic population of this planet with actual good people, ACTUAL humans that care about others.
In any case, it's impossible to build something good on a corrupt base. It's like building that's built on top of a swamp or quicksand, or a bad base that keeps breaking down.. eventually the whole thing is just going to come crashing down.
Money is a chain for the soul, because it makes you turn towards selfishness and greed more often than not. It even happened to Valve (Act Man's video makes it clear), how easily can it happen to an individual? Look at almost ANYone that became rich, especially 'filty rich' - how many true philantrophists do you see? Even 'Pewdiepie' (Felix) didn't donate half of his money immediately to the poor and needy. He did some charity and giveaways, but often it was 'raised money', not his own wallet dollars and pounds. He still kept collecting more to fulfill his selfish dream of living in Japan.
We have to realize that being rich doesn't bring you happiness, we have to learn how to find value and joy in poverty, and to see money as a wage slave chain as well as other things.
This means we don't ALWAYS have to pity the poor, or slam the rich for not giving to the poor - someone poor can actually be happier as 'poor' (relatively speaking anyway) than super rich.
According to the studies, Lotto winners get something between three months and three years of 'happiness', then their feelings go to 'normal'. They won't be AN IOTA happier than they were before the win.
I guess part of it is because a Lotto win makes you focus solely on the money and what you can do with it, so you want to exploit all the possibilities. But after you have bought your fourth house in the Bahamas, and pay off your second private Jet, have visited Thailand eighteen times for .. pleasurable exoticism, it all starts to feel boring and samey. How many times can you just buy something shiny and expect to feel excited about it? How many times can you land in a faraway place and feel excited about it? Eventually it all becomes boring, no matter how 'luxurious' your lifestyle may be.
This sounds pretty horrible, I guess, but when you consider the old Zen koans, perhaps people are happier, maybe not dirt poor and struggling, but at least 'not very rich', because that allows them to be focused on OTHER things than money.
'Free from money' is a better place to be than 'Chained by masses of money', wouldn't you say? If you are rich enough that you don't have to think about money, but poor enough that your whole focus isn't only on the money and what it gives you, then you might be the happiest.
I'd like to think that if I ever got huge amount of money and wealth, I would ONLY use it as 'key to options', and not obsess over it or whatever. I would simply expand my life and its options to the max., and leave it at that, and then just try to live as good a life within that framework as possible. It could be fun to just be able to do 'anything I want at any point', and just for humor, it could be giggly to just take a taxi cab to some destination that's 1000 kilometers away, just to buy an ice cream, and head back.
Of course there would be the guilt - how can I enjoy myself and luxuries, when people don't even have food. So it'd always be a pain.
In the end, this moral dilemma becomes something like.. "How much is enough?"
If you give 500 dollars to some kid that hasn't eaten well in years, you might feel good. But should you then feed that kid forever? What about his/her family?
Should you go to a poor country and give a million dollars to some village?
What happens when they run out of the money?
Should you just randomly distribute packs of ten thousand bucks to different poor people or groups of people? What would satisfy the guilt? Would you EVER feel like you have given enough?
Where is the point, after which you can say 'Right, I have given enough, now I can just selfishly enjoy my monty'?
I would be so bad with money like that, even if I hired someone, I would definitely overpay them out of sheer guilt, and I couldn't just keep paying them a 'modest salary'. I would run out of the money so quickly because of that. Everyone I hire would probably get ten times more than they would usually get, especally some kind of butler or cook.
Even then I would feel guilty. And they would quit, because they would have so much money, they could invest in stocks and become richer than I am. This problem alone is a weird feature of this world; someone rich can't pay someone handsomely, or they will stop working, because they don't need to anymore.
Then again, people should work for the joy of work, because they want to do that work, not because the world makes it so they HAVE to work - I would HATE to support that kind of system.
This is somewhat shown in the movie, where the former butler is suddenly the master, and bosses around other people, and feels important due to it. There's something just so wrong about this. Shouldn't he UNDERSTAND what it feels like and have more compassion towards the people he now bosses around like some psycho?
I can't see a problem-free way to be rich, so I am glad I don't have that kind of wealth.
"Poverty is your treasure. Never exchange it for an easy life."-Koan
I've been to tropical islands multiple times. It's amazing and a very worthwhile goal. Try it, you'd get it.
shareHappens in real life as well. Many once poor people that make it in sports or Hollywood rarely give back to the community. Some do but its small in nature be it opening a school or library or whatnot. Nothing really substantial or live altering to affect the whole neighborhood but gives a little lift up.
shareWay more irresponsible to release a male gorilla back into the wild without natural survival instincts, AND mated with human male instead of a female gorilla who could produce offspring to repopulate the species. I think the last hour of the film could have been dedicated to educating the viewers about gorillas, their natural habitats, and the general dangers of gorilla costumes in hampering the global effort to save all endangered wildlife.
shareIt was only a bloody fool!
shareTrue but it is just a fun, silly movie.
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