Having read other reviews, I was moved to write this as several reviews completely "miss the point" of this excellent film: they concentrate on the violence as disturbing and the characters contrived and distasteful.
The film is a superb and straightforward morality tale: brutal, stark and nobody wins. The film is simple in narrative, but the message is timeless, and achingly sadly evoked in the final scene.
"Welcome to the real world, some reviewers": there IS violence in the world, exactly like this; it's a fact. The entire film is not comedic violence a la Tarantino; it is about (extreme) vengeance and the universal harm it does.
That one can sympathies to small degree with the protagonist is again real life - most violence is caused by "something", ie is not usually a random act. It is entirely morally wrong, but there just is usually a lead-in, or some excuse/rationalization. And the characters are not contrived - they are alarmingly accurate (having known a couple of UK special forces individuals, they have been trained to do a job; they are the best in the world at it; and if you want a very very hard time, they are the people to get on the wrong side of.)
It is clear at the end that the avenger has known all along that the carnage he has caused means he will have nowhere to go; he wants to die.
The film is superb, and critics of it are merely criticizing a part of the real world they would rather not know about (or a part of themselves/everyone).
- As if this all constitutes a "bad" film.
The film is a superb and straightforward morality tale: brutal, stark and nobody wins. The film is simple in narrative, but the message is timeless, and achingly sadly evoked in the final scene.
"Welcome to the real world, some reviewers": there IS violence in the world, exactly like this; it's a fact. The entire film is not comedic violence a la Tarantino; it is about (extreme) vengeance and the universal harm it does.
That one can sympathies to small degree with the protagonist is again real life - most violence is caused by "something", ie is not usually a random act. It is entirely morally wrong, but there just is usually a lead-in, or some excuse/rationalization. And the characters are not contrived - they are alarmingly accurate (having known a couple of UK special forces individuals, they have been trained to do a job; they are the best in the world at it; and if you want a very very hard time, they are the people to get on the wrong side of.)
It is clear at the end that the avenger has known all along that the carnage he has caused means he will have nowhere to go; he wants to die.
The film is superb, and critics of it are merely criticizing a part of the real world they would rather not know about (or a part of themselves/everyone).