Gordo should have simply dealt with his own life

Bullies are a blight on society and it is never too late to get revenge on them.

You say that you do not condone what Simon did, but actually you do not care.
Since victims of bullying can "just deal with their own life".

Let me guess: no one should ever blame someone else for stuff they did to them, because we all have 100% free will and everything that happens is only your fault.

Then why do we even prosecute anyone?
If all people - like you seem to think - can just freely mold their thinking, why do we have psychiatrists? Or child protective services?
We should take that all down - it only costs money and we don't need it anyway!

Everyone who is hurt so bad that they can't get up anymore is just a loser.
Refugees, war crime victims, traumatized soldiers, suicides - all just a bunch of losers.

Sorry for my harsh words but the lack of empathy you can see in your post is... astonishing.

Imagine this scenario:
Someone had a car accident.
It takes hours until he is cut out of the car wreck when they finally found him. During the time he was stuck and crying for help he could hear the family dog slowly dying in the trunk.
Both of the guys legs are broken multiple times. Because the healing takes long he looses his job. The surgeries were expensive, too, so now he is in dept. He gets depressed, his wife can't take it anymore and leaves him.
All because some guy got drunk. And there won't even be a prosecution because he is a rich guy and just buys his way out.

I say: what a pussy! I was in a car accident once. Even broke my nose! And I got over it, too!

It's a fabricated movie. It's not real. Bullies and those evil corporations. Tired old story line meant to get the gullible all workefup. Laughable.

Hahahaha. It's a stupid movie. It's made up. Some guy wrote a script meant to jerk your emotions arouND and you act like it is real stuff. Laughable. Gullible.

I felt that he was giving Simon lots of chances to own his mistakes. Initially it wasn't about the revenge but with Simons continued stubbornness and aggression made Gordons reaction bigger. They eached seemed to goad each other until, like Gordon told him, it was too late.
Also, I find saying "growning up" very insensitive. Abuse can affect people deeply, almost every serial killer you could name was a victim of abuse in some way. They didnt need to grow up, they needed someone to help them with their issues. Just look at veterans with PTSD, do they just need to grow up? No they need help understanding what it is that affects them and how to deal with that in society.

"If God was a villain, he'd be me"

Thanks for dismissing the pain of others because their flaws and weaknesses don't fit into your extremely narrow worldview of Rambo-esque machismo. And thanks for further stigmatizing mental illness with your pseudo-psychology that says being bullied, beaten, tormented, and psychologically damaged is just cowardice. Over 100 years of research and understanding on the human psyche thrown in the bin because people with mental issues are just trying to blame others for their failures. Gotcha. Thanks again, todd.

Of course, the irony here is I actually agree with you. One should take responsibility for one's failures. Except, you know, when it's actually their own fault. Being beaten by a kid and then having him spread a lie that you are gay which enrages your father so much he tries to burn you to death would, strangely, not be your fault. And the lasting psychological effects of this would, strangely, linger well into your adulthood. But I'm sure you're sitting in an office with a PhD in psychiatry and you can lecture us on what the mental state of a person who's gone through all that should be, yes? He should just pull himself up by the bootstraps and get over it, eh toddy boy? Because that's what real men do, dammit!

For *beep*'s sake.

Let me replace some words in your post to illustrate how outrageous what you're saying is.
Pretend that instead of having been bullied by Simon, Gordo was molested by him. And that Gordo was a child at the time.

"Although I don't agree with [molesting] anyone ... I think we have to realize this is something that happened ... probably close to 30 years ago. It seemed to me Gordo was blaming his own failures in life on [being molested]. Well, I'm sorry, but IMO Gordo needed to grow up a bit. I never cared for people that would blame their failures in life on [being molested]. Not condoning what Simon did - but hey, what 18 year old kid hasn't done something really crappy in life?? ... But if Im Gordo, well, if I saw Simon, I might be tempted to smack him around a bit - but to be bothered enough to go out of my way to ruin his life? Over something that happened in [childhood]? No, I dont think so. I think only a loser in life looking to blame someone for their own mistakes would do that."

I don't think it's about him blaming on Simon for his failing life. It's about the damage it caused. It was traumatic, his father almost burned for 'being gay'. And that pain, it cannot be healed by time.
Simon had a self condoning view on life, that 'time heals everything'. This is bullcrap. In my country there's a saying: 'One who beats just forget about it, one who's got beaten, does not.'

But it's not only about the damage, it's the aftermath. I mean, it's not understood, at any point, that Gordo stalked Simon, their encounter was really a work of chance. And he kind of...tested him, in order to realize how much of a change happened to that 'former' bully. And he found it was nothing.

His behavior was nasty, arrogant and abusive since the beginning. And that moment in the 'borrowed' living room of that house, when he was - in a very tortuous way - to bee nice, when Simon made fun of his supposed attempt on drawing his wife's attention (which he filmed, only to detect these changes) got the point proven.

So, for those who've never been through bullying or under abusive behavior, it's really hard to understand and easy to misjudge actions such as Gordo's. It was crazy, wrong, mean and manipulative, but it was all coming from a human being in a 'serene pain', like a white noise.