Or after 2000 – which I consider to be a symbolic date for the end of cinema (more here) – there are inactive films in which good is good, evil is evil, and common sense suggests that justice is more crucial than procedures and laws? Productions with Jason Statham make you think...
I never liked Jason Statham. His kind is wooden and devoid of flair, and frequently even a sense of humor. But I gave him a chance and after seeing what message was smuggled in films with him in the lead role, I began to forgive wood, opposition and rigidity.
Did Jason Statham take over from the '90s tough guys?
In the films with Statham, the old, played motives of fighting evil, protecting the defenseless and moral dilemmas of law enforcement or erstwhile soldiers, balancing on the border of law or abroad, but always seeking good and justice. The 21st century gave these themes a somewhat different dynamic – little fine, but dynamic. Statham fights like he's a four-handed commando, although he didn't service in the military in real life, but he was just an athlete and practiced many martial arts.
But paradoxically in films – specified as Chaos explanation (2005), Blitz (2011), Protector (2012), In self-defense (2013), Hummingbird (2013) and even newer One angry man (2021) and Beekeeper (2024) – the pace and manner of narration is notable. The pace is average (there is no screen inlay typical of newer production), and the communicative has something in it from the old school.
Not all of these stories are morally pure. There are “momentations” (including the culmination of an affair with a nun, which is immediately), but the method issue (in this case the decisive one) should be noted as follows. If evil is given in the form of a balanced story, the recipient has the chance to justice or even condemn it. But if we give evil like a drug (as in most modern films), it starts to infect us and soften our moral views.
There is no heroism in these films. In almost all 1 of them, the protagonist played by Statham has a problem with alcohol and is simply a degenerate (about whether in Hollywood only the degenerate can be politically incorrect present I wrote on the occasion of the show. Goliath). But the reason is always any kind of professional trauma during the service, and yet the hero gets back on his feet and shows the bandits where they belong.
This is simply a characteristic of today's cinema. It no longer has area for the apology of virtue, even though it was primitively understood as a valor from the end of the last century. However, this does not mean that virtue in the films with Statham does not occur. Yes, she is present, but always active in any moral conflict. This is even intriguing and most likely by ‘non-drug’, a small Oldschool The pace of action we have the chance to take an up-to-date reflection on the nature of good and evil and classical antinomia for the 1990s. – nonsubjective justice of the account flawed, human legal system.
Once again from the shoe to legal positivism!
Film Beekeeper is most likely the biggest phenomenon mentioned above – due to the date of production per current year. The hero belongs to a secret American unit whose occupation is to reconstruct order erstwhile the strategy collapses. He is threatened by the mob of fraudsters, who led to the death of his good neighbour, and, as it is not hard to guess, will undertake a lonely revenge. We practically do not know whether he is moral or only ruthless, but at the end we hear dialog with a typical of corrupt government spheres who explain everything to us.
First of all, there are words that are like a powerful kick into 1 of the biggest errors that lead our civilization to fall: legal positivism (convincing that human law is the highest law and negation of God's natural law). erstwhile an FBI agent faces a dilemma, whether to enforce the law or stand on the side of the title Beekeeper, he says to her: Choose: Law or Justice.
In turn in the movie Blitz we find a perfect reflection of the madness that Western legal systems have come to, spent on non-male and dishonest politicians and media hyenas. At first, we see the main character, a cop, encountering a dark alley on a bunch of thieves who get to someone's car and endanger to stab him. He's doing his job, then in the next scene we see a header in the paper... "Indefensive youth attacked by madman with hockey stick".
From the very beginning, we have a clear message about how alleged mainstream media became an anti-state 5th column, which destroys moral order and participates in the criminal work of putting bandits above law-abiding citizens and taking distant the another means of defence.
Things are happening in Britain, and although the hero, like the full police station, is courting a friend who is simply a fag (yes, that's the word used), it is already clear how suicidal madness supported this erstwhile powerful country. It has not been a decade since the premiere of this film, and present we are watching police parade there with homosexual-genderal "blow" and usage force against citizens who say that God created us man and woman, and defenseless children should not be murdered.
Police Anti-film
Some of the productions discussed here fit into a species akin to Anti-Western. I'd say that's it Police antifilm, unlike conventional cop film. As in anti-Western (exemplum: large Missouri Breaks with Jack Nickolson and Marlon Brando), we are dealing with a substitution of conventional roles – bad becomes good, good becomes bad.
Without wanting to uncover the plots of circumstantial films, I will say that – possibly against the intentions of the creators – I find myself in this recital trying to rip a small fact out of the lying jobs of this world. In a word: So what if a hero steals, cheats and kills erstwhile his victims are only bad people, and the strategy that should stand on the side of the good represents nothing better? Finally, we realize how large the hypocrisy of those who want to tell us what is lawful and what is not. And although we do not absolve the hero of the evil done, our point is to the fundamental question: Have we not lost our mention to nonsubjective law and transcendence in our view of the regulation of law, simply on what is disgustingly mundane?
One thing they don't teach you: erstwhile the strategy sits down, you gotta make up for to get results. – says the protagonist of 1 of the films mentioned above, explaining that you cannot break, but you can bend the rules to accomplish justice. In this is simply a reminder of what was erstwhile called the virtue of epikea in our civilization, and what should be the absolute basis for our reflection on the relation to the degenerate legal and political strategy (I wrote about epikea here.).
An affair with a nun: blasphemy or just ignorance?
An interesting example is the movie Hummingbird with Agata Buzek, who acts as a Polish nun serving in London. From the beginning, it surprises us that we seldom see in the Hollywood cinema, namely the presentation of Catholicism in a affirmative and desirable sense.
The main character is simply a homeless erstwhile peculiar forces soldier following a war trauma in Afghanistan who accidentally broke into the home of a wealthy man (who went on vacation) and treated it as a chance to change his life. A sister who spends meals for the homeless receives 500 pounds from a drunken main character, who, erstwhile asked where she got them, answers: Or did God give it to me?
In the next scene, we see the parent Superior bring a young nun to the ground saying: You want to take this to the police? They'd drink everything in the pub... Let's put it in the food fund.. In general, throughout the full movie – aside from controversialness, and moments of pretentiousness, love subject – Catholicism is shown amazingly without prejudice.
The “love” subject itself begins with balancing on the border of temptation—he gives her a dress, she says he will send along with gifts to Africa, but yet breaks and dresses her to meet him at the opening. erstwhile we observe the main character (again the degenerate, the alcoholic who left his wife and daughter), we see how the “sensitivity” of the man of this planet collides, for whom the given word (marriage) is not irreversible, and the habit can be removed as he took off his uniform. Consequence, fidelity is irrelevant, only the current impulse in which lust and desire to aid those in request (hero seeks a missing girl who has kidnapped the gang and the nun helps him).
Yeah, we can say that Hummingbird hits on the sanctity of spiritual vows, but at the same time shows the drama of the nun herself (who was molested by a gymnast coach and did not become a ballerina due to the fact that the bossy father opposed it) and yet – although the motive of the affair treats besides recklessly – however, ends as in the old Polish song You go up, I'll go down. – the sister remains faithful to her calling. I would have risked the claim that the creators showed ignorance in the substance of knowing the essence of consecrated life alternatively than the desire to obstinately throw the glove to a Catholic viewer.
An island free of ideology?
For the reasons explained above, Jason Statham films depart from the classical model of the Hollywood communicative taken from Poetics Aristotle. But what is not to say, they are a part of solid action cinema free from ideological transmission and even nowadays – maintaining common sense. For that reason, they are worth looking into.
Interestingly, Statham himself is not willing to tell the left and the right about his views. And, as it were, I would alternatively not know anything about his views than hear him scorn "reproductive rights" or see him kneel before Negro criminals and then win Donald Trump. There is something intriguing in his films – something that does not let to pass even the controversial threads. possibly that's what you mentioned. Oldschool tempo, or possibly any hidden (conservative) intention? hard to say.
Filip Obara
See also:
Deconstruction in Catholic: How “the homogenization of culture” stole us expressive movie personalities
Deconstruction after Catholic: “The want of death” – can a citizen take justice into his own hands?
Deconstruction after Catholic: “Renegat”, that is legalism vs. common sense
