Lets face it...sloppy procedure and carelessness in Gym Locker Room caused Death of Chance and potential loss of both agents...they lost control of the big Gorilla and that was it...
shareThey had no agency support, so it was already doomed before the cuffs came out.
You just knew something bad was going to happen walking into that scene.
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Guys, come on! Can't we have one poker night without a hate crime?
The best part is that it was wholly in line with their previous actions. They were absolutely terrible agents: falling asleep on stakeouts, getting other federal agents killed, putting innocents in danger...
shareWhile I understand that some can focus on the various shortcomings of the characters, mistakes they make and negative outcomes that could have been avoided, the film is not really about that. The basic theme is using the metaphor of counterfeiting in particular, moving beyond that to fakery in general, to underscore the inauthentic nature of the lives and social and general context in which they live. In choosing to pursue the exploration of that theme in the context, in part, of Treasury agents doing their work, it was part of that theme to show them falling below the usual and idealized picture used of the police. Of course it is not only the police who make mistakes, but the point remains about the agents.
As a result I don't think it makes much sense to focus on how "terrible" they are in terms of some supposed ideal or even average standard. Fact is anyone can make a mistake.
This is made clear from the first scene through the encounter in the desert near Lancaster. In no time a terrorist posing as a room service waiter ditches his "cover", is up on the roof and well on his way to completing his mission. Are Chance's actions here incompetent? No, but it is implied the cop on the roof was.
Then we have the development of someone who has literally made it through his career to a few days short of retirement before we encounter him in that desert scene. Is it a plot hole that someone like Agent Hart would have spent that entire career surviving only to end up in "the wrong place at the wrong time"? I really don't think so. the whole thing plays out quite plausibly.
For the mistakes made by the various characters, at other times we see them being competent. The film is about something else.
It’s true, all the characters end up bungling things. Even calm, methodical Defoe screws up - his attempted hit on Carl goes tits up, and he gets duped by the ‘heroes’ leading to his ultimate downfall.
Out hero ends up getting an FBI agent killed, let’s a detainee escape, and in the end gets a shotgun to the face.
Everyone’s screwing up in this film, it’s got to be an intentional theme, along with the recurring motif of ‘counterfeit’ relationships. Everyone’s faking to get what they want.
And given what we've learned about The Secret Service in RL ( https://www.npr.org/2021/05/17/997494777/failure-dysfunction-in-the-secret-service ), the events depicted in this movie aren't as implausible as we've been led to believe
shareProfessional Bunglers.
shareThe mods over at TMDB are giving The Secret Service a run for their money in that department. A handful of Woke members have cowed the otherwise mostly chill moderators into banning everyone who dissents with all of that shit. Dunno how either The USSS or TMDB is going to survive like that
shareWhat kind of comments are they starting to ban?
shareWhat kind of comments are they starting to ban?
Put it to you this way.... TMDB's mods have no objections to folks posting comments about "The White Male Hegemony" in threads for Seeing Red, or users like DamienRacer showing up just to be shitheads towards anyone who criticizes superhero movies. But you can get banned for posting comments that are facetious and call bullshit on vacuous Woke Jargon like "The White Male Hegemony". Lotsa luck to them, if they think that a film site can survive with a stick that far up it's rectum
Interesting. I’ve been criticising Woke for years here without a problem. If they start censoring me then I’ll go elsewhere.
share