The Messenger Is The Medium
By Mitch Berg
Bruce Willis’s remake of Death Wish got panned. Flamed. Excoriated. Racism, sexism, gun-ism, failure to recycle, the works.
Now comes Peppermint, starring Jennifer Garner.
And what’s the theme, you ask?
“What do I want? I want justice,” Garner warns in the trailer’s opening seconds. From there, we see her spending quality time with her family before tragedy strikes. She retreats for a while, licking her wounds and turning herself into a living weapon.
Why? To take out the trash.
And the media the skinned Willis alive? Silent.
This is nothing new, of course; about ten years ago, Hollywood released a couple of movies where sympathetic characters went on vigilante sprees, where “sympathetic” meant suitably left of center; most noxious was Jodie Foster as an NPR host who went all Charles Bronson on her husband’s killer.
The lesson?
The only thing consistent about out culture’s misbegotten “elites” is ther hypocrisy.
June 19th, 2018 at 8:31 am
I’m pretty right wing and have a lot of guns, I am solidly ensconced in gunny culture. I hated Willis’ Death Wish, just saw it. It’s qualitatively bad, period, and then yeah there’s a bit of racial dog whistling.
June 19th, 2018 at 9:13 am
I liked the idea of reading Milton Friedman’s essays on economics to someone in a coma.
June 19th, 2018 at 10:58 am
The movie is being criticized on the Left because it has too many Hispanic bad guys.
Being “woke” means believing that everything bad in the world has its origin in white supremicism, and expressing that belief in every action you take.
No exceptions.
June 19th, 2018 at 11:28 am
Plot synopsis from Wikipedia:
So why, I ask myself, were the villains from a (presumably) Hispanic cartel? Why not from an oil company whose irrational desire to mine frac-sand in Riley North’s backyard drives them to murder?
The answer is obvious.
There are too many white male writers in Hollywood. Time to do something about that.
June 19th, 2018 at 12:54 pm
Death Wish – 48.6 million
John Wick — 171.5 million
The Accountant – 155.2 million
Perhaps a bad movie deserves it’s reviews. The audience votes with its wallet.
June 19th, 2018 at 1:27 pm
I’m a righty. I just saw Willis’ Death Wish. It’s qualitatively bad, period, and then yeah there’s a bit of racial dog whistling.
June 19th, 2018 at 1:43 pm
moderation test
June 19th, 2018 at 1:47 pm
I’m a righty. I just saw the Willis’ movie. It’s qualitatively bad, period, and then yeah there’s a bit of racial dog whistling.
June 19th, 2018 at 6:40 pm
John, would you mind giving some examples of what made the movie “qualitatively bad, period?”
June 20th, 2018 at 8:55 am
*Bruce Willis, ya know, leading man and action hero… well the movie has to start out with him understood as some kind of mope and wimp. It doesn’t fly. His plastic surgery makes him look like an alien, btw.
*Elizabeth Shue as a supporting actress and wife character who is never cross…. it doesn’t pass a test for suspension of disbelief. She’s TOO perfect, it was cloying.
*The minority greaseball types that are the criminals are over the top in their malevolence.
Taken as a whole, the white revenge porn storyline and characters there are rightfully understood as something of a cracker exploitation genre. I’m not even woke, and I was embarrassed watching it.
June 20th, 2018 at 11:17 am
On the plus side, it’s ready-made for an NRA ad campaign.
June 20th, 2018 at 11:31 am
It was an NRA ad. Willis goes from mopey and wimpy to robust and masculine once he has a gun. I’m a 2A absolutist, by the way. Obnoxious movie though, and not helpful.