Ending meaning?
I just want to get someones take on the ending of the movie when Michael Douglas's character just walked away? I feel like i missed something...like the meaning of what i think is a great movie?
shareSimply, he quits his job, having realised that -- having had first-hand experience with Caroline -- that the war on drugs is ultimately unwinnable. His final words in his speech are something to the effect of "I dont know how you can wage war on your own family". Robert realises this is what he would have to do in order to combat the war on drugs, and he cannot do that.
GAV
My Films: www.youtube.com/gncfilms
I disagree. I think he just realized that it needs to be won in a different way. Remember when he was at the party and one of the politicians told him "you can't win the war on the supply side. As long as there is a demand out there, they'll supply the drugs"? Then he asked the mexican general how they are treating addicts, and he replied "addicts treat themselves when they OD." I think he just realized that the war can't be won on a macro level, it needs to be on a much smaller scale with everybody supporting the people they love with drug problems. That is why he quit his job. So he could support his daughter, and do his part to stop the trafficking of drugs.
shareI agree, that could be another way to see it.
GAV
My Films: www.youtube.com/gncfilms
For me, the ending isn't Wakefield's speech.
It's Javier sitting in the stands at the ballpark, remembering Manolo, hoping that this new nighttime park will keep kids thinking about things like baseball, and away from drugs.
'Everybody likes baseball...Everybody likes parks...'
The look in his eyes as he watches the game, and considers all he has been through, and at what price the ballpark was built, stays with me a lot more than Wakefield's words.
Matt Channing
Oscar quality film music at bargain basement prices.
I think the overall message of the movie is that the war on drugs in unwinnable--but that hope still exists for the individual.
shareI thought the moral of the story (on Douglas' character's part) was don't let work overshadow your family.
"Does it look like I give a damn?" - James Bond
Definitely meant to contrast the two approaches. Javier's micro approach verses the macro war on drugs approach.
shareIt certainly can be won on a macro level, but it requires radical new approaches. If you keep trying the same thing, why do people expect different outcomes?
Legalize drugs and treat them like a health problem. Health campaigns, cleaner drugs, less costs to feed an addiction all helps. No advertising like for oxicodone of course!
"I dont know how you can wage war on your own family". Robert realises this is what he would have to do in order to combat the war on drugs, and he cannot do that.
Michael Douglas conflates "the war on drugs" with making war on family members who may have a drug problem, which is horsecrap. Family members are not illicit drugs, they are people. The war on drugs is fought by helping addicts get clean, arresting drug traffickers, etc. How is helping addicts get clean making war on family members?
How is fighting against drug trafficking in any sense fighting a war against your daughter who is drug addicted? Does Douglas want his daughter to have a cheaper source of drugs? That is what giving up on the war on drugs would do. Does arresting drug traffickers somehow physically harm his daughter? No. His statement was nonsense.
Douglas statement was a Hollywood leftist attack on conservative policies toward drugs. People who try to find some kind of logic or wisdom in it are forced to infer meanings which his words do not convey. Because his statement was horsecrap.
You may say he really meant that the war was unwinnable, a message stated over and over again throughout the movie, but that is not at all what he said. He said:
"If there is a war on drugs, then many of our family members are the enemy. And I don't know how you wage war on your own family."
Again, the war on drugs has nothing to do with attacking your family members. If your daughter has a drug problem, you help her get clean. You don't protect her supply of drugs, which is what giving up the war on drugs would do.
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Does Douglas want his daughter to have a cheaper source of drugs? That is what giving up on the war on drugs would do.
That would actually help. If the price drops addicts have to steal or prostitute less. If you legalize drugs then almost all the crime goes away. You still have the health problem, but you can treat it like that.
Health campaigns lead to fewer addicts and cleaner drugs lead to fewer deaths and health problems as well. If you don't have to be scared about jail, you can get help easier like an alcoholic. If there isn't as much shame and dealings in the shadows, you can identify problems and help easier.
And many people today start taking drugs after getting hooked on prescribed oxicodone etc which is basically morphine.
And this is what scientists and doctors say after studies have been done. Portugal decriminalized drugs and the addiction rate dropped. share
Douglas statement made no sense on its face. He said:
If there is a war on drugs, then many of our family members are the enemy.
No, the enemy is drug addiction and you fight it on several fronts, one being treatment programs.
How do treatment programs and supply interdiction constitute a war on family members? They don't.
That was my main point.
That would actually help. If the price drops addicts have to steal or prostitute less.
If the price goes down it becomes more affordable to more kids, which may lead to more addicts. The same kids can afford more drugs, which may lead to more drug use and more overdoses.
Legalizing cocaine would be disasterous. Given the choice between food and cocaine, rats choose cocaine every time. People tend to do the same. After a while they abandon personal hygiene. Heroin users still maintain their hygiene habits, but not cocaine users.
I have seen people go through all their money because they were high and did not want to quit using. The price didn't matter to them. They simply didn't want to stop using. It is that addictive.
So again, how does a treatment program to help someone like that constitute a war on them?
It was a stupid statement. People who want it to make sense somehow pretend it really meant something else, like the war is unwinnable. But that is not what he said.
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How do treatment programs and supply interdiction constitute a war on family members? They don't.
Yeah I agree with that. But that isn't how the WAR on drugs (emphasis on war, meaning killing people) is defined. I think the point was that he knew he wouldn't be able to really change policy, but would simply implement the same strategy that hasn't work since it started (and it started as a means to subjugate black and poor people, there is evidence of propaganda efforts). It's not called a war for nothing, and you can't call a treatment program a war. So as long as it's called "war on drugs" (e.g. sicario) the policy means what the word implies.
In a way though I agree with you, he was in a position to affect change even by just making a fuss and some headlines to point to new directions. He shouldn't have given up a change to actually help. But that specific phrase is about war, and how even today it constitutes a war on your own population. The incarceration rate in the US is an atrocity. His post was in executing policy, and he didn't want to be complicit in that. Under this policy (that he as a judge would have been sworn to uphold) he would have had to incarcerate his own child - or become corrupt. So his statement is valid.
In the movie the real reason he resigned was to be there for his daughter.
Given the choice between food and cocaine, rats choose cocaine every time.
I believed that for a long time as well. But this is a typical case of bias to proove a point.
There actually are studies that show a better environment for rats change that behavior. If all you have to do is run on a treadmill in a cage all day, you prefer the drugs.
http://cocaine.org/cocaine-addiction/what-the-cocaine-addiction-rat-studies-reveal/
https://www.google.com/search?num=50&q=rats+cocaine+food+study+better+environment
I have seen people go through all their money because they were high and did not want to quit using. The price didn't matter to them. They simply didn't want to stop using.
But that argument works the other way. A high price on drugs does not dissuade users from using. If drugs were free (as an extreme example) nobody would have to steal for it. But the drug user rate wouldn't rise up to 100% just because it's free.
I think it's called an "inelastic market" (learned that from "The Wire" haha) which means you can't apply typical capitalism logic of supply and demand to it. share
But that isn't how the WAR on drugs (emphasis on war, meaning killing people) is defined.
I am pretty sure that was how they defined it; treatment programs were a major part of the "war on drugs".
And the interdiction side of it was not a war in the ordinary political and military sense, but more of a law enforcement operation. Certainly the drug cartels can and do get violent, and then LEOs must respond in kind. But the normal definition of war does not apply in this instance. The word war here is a marketing term more than anything else, a way for officials to imply that they were making big efforts, really "fighting hard" to solve the problem, etc. Elected officials have long used this phrase for that purpose.
At any rate, Douglas as drug czar (a stupid title) had the power to make the policy the way he wanted to make it; if he wanted to place the majority of the focus on stopping the demand side of the equation he had to authority to do so. So for him to break down and give up like that was really pointless.
There is just no way around it for me; Douglas's line about making family the enemy was baloney.
I think the film maker was possibly subtley selling legalization and perhaps that is why he was given that line. But it really made no sense. It was just poor writing.
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WRITETOPCAT
WHERE in the world did you learn all you know on this subject!?!
"Douglas's line about making family the enemy was baloney."
Wow - are you going to REPEAT this silly Fallacy of yours 100 times? Why repeat it 5 times when you have zero Factual back-up for it?
TREATMENT is only a very, very recent idea; the vast % of ALL addicts in America ARE and have been put into PRISON, not Treatment.
As in, the vast majority. How can you NOT know this, ASSUME the opposite which is factually wrong and ASSUME that your little Fallacy / Premise /Argument is 100% Correct?
WHERE in the world did you learn all you know on this subject!?!
Where did I learn about what Douglas's character was talking about in the movie? From what he said in the movie.
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I think the same way. Message me.
share"writetopcat"
Your comments illustrate that you have very little actual Experience and the sheer ignorance of your many wrong ASSUMPTIONS illustrates that you likely "learned about this stuff on TV" and not in Reality.
You ask over and over 'how treatment' is warring on family members. Treatment!?! HA!
Treatment has only been talked about as truly being 'Part of the War on Drugs' very recently - and treatment is NOT part of that war, as you so ignorantly assume. Prison is the War on Drugs answer for any and all addicts. PRISON, not jail and not treatment.
Educate yourself; learn the Facts, Stats, etc. - Treatment is so absolutely inadequate, represents such a tiny % of the War, etc., that you are merely ASSUMING "Well, because I know that Treatment is an excellent, effective Answer - so must the entire Rest of the World!"
Wrong; Prison is THE answer provided by the War. Treatment in America? LOOK IT UP. How many addicts receive proper Treatment? WHAT ACTUAL % IN REALITY?
Treatment has only been talked about as truly being 'Part of the War on Drugs' very recently - and treatment is NOT part of that war, as you so ignorantly assume.
Watch the movie again. Treatment was part of Douglas's character's plan in the movie. I am talking about the plan that Douglas's character in the movie had laid out, (not anything some real world politician may have said). Treatment part of HIS plan. That is what I am going by, I am not assuming it.
Another part of his plan had to do with interdiction. Go back and watch the movie again, you will see. There was NOTHING in his plan about attacking the end users. His plan called for treatment of the end users.
So it made no sense for him to then say it was a war on family members who did drugs.
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