I think someone else may have touched on this, but did it really bother anyone else that at the end, Tobe and Lonnie spread Harlan/Martin's ashes? This guy was a con/criminal and killed/injured cops, Tobe, Wade, etc.
I just didn't feel he deserved anything.
Perhaps Tobe isn't as bitter as you are. Remember, forgiveness is a virtue.
shareHarlan/Martin shot Tobe by accident, and the rest of the people he shot was in self defense. And Tobe loved him.
shareSelf Defense? Your joking right? He was an armed felon with a kidnapped child who was on the run from shooting another child. The general criminal law allows for the use of necessary and proportionate, non-deadly force in self-defense anytime the victim reasonably believes that unlawful force is about to be used on him. Harlan used deadly force and the force that was to be used on him was lawful (the police). The police were trying to get him to put his guns down. This was in no way self defense and no court would see that way either. As for why they spread his ashes, you could be right about Tobe still loving him.
shareIf you have the chance, watch the Q&A with Norton and the writer/director in the special features. They sum it up nicely, I think. It's not as easy for the kids to reduce the relationship they both had with Harlen to just being a bad thing because of how it ended. It was very complex and confusing for them since there was some true and honest good things there.
I found this movie to be original but it also reminded me a lot of Taxi Driver (and not just because he was talking into the mirror). Harlan, like Travis, really wanted to fit into some sort of normal life, but also found society at large to be lacking in some of the qualities and morals he felt people in general should have. At the same time, he was already mentally unbalanced and compounded that with drugs. But all in all I think he cared about both of them.
Not to mention statutory rape. I can't believe all the sympathy for the guy. Even if the kids still had feelings for him, would the dad really be so willing to drive them up there and let them scatter his ashes?
"Hmm, this guy had sex with my 16-year-old daughter, shot and nearly killed her, kidnapped my son, killed a police officer, and then tried to kill me ... sure, I'll let my kids scatter his ashes!"
Whatever. Had I been the dad I'd have flushed 'em.
Johnny Betts
[email protected]
http://www.themoviemark.com
I think your missing a major point of the movie. As deluded as he was, Harlin developed an extremely close relationship with both of them. Something that was missing from their relationship with their father it seemed. In the scene where Lonnie was watching his father clean his gun, you got the feeling that Lonnie felt he was meek in his father's eyes, and there seemed to be a distance between them, whereas Harlin showed a genuine interest in how he was feeling and what he wanted to do from the moment he met him. He supported him, and encouraged him to be his own man. They both expressed confusion as to why Harlin had done the things he had done, but I think that we were meant to believe, as I feel they did, that Harlin did care deeply for both of them. That being said, I didn't have much sympathy for the guy myself after he shot Tob, but he was insane.
share[deleted]
I didn't have much of a problem with that because this film lost all sense of logic and intelligence the moment he shot her, everything else was inconsequential.
shareI agree with the OP to a degree. However, they were just kids after all and they both cared about "Harlan". I think that the scene was poorly done, and it came across that they were really grieving for him. At some point they had to have been horrified by what he had done and relieved on some level to be free of the situation. He was killing people left and right! Three that we know of, right? The only person he didn't actually shoot was the boy. The David Morse character was a lesson in bad parenting. Among other things his son was gone for quite a while before he even noticed... He was a very one-sided character. And he was consistently abusive.
It would have been nice to know more of Toby's reaction to what happened - before the Ashes scene.
[deleted]