because monogamy is evil
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Vincent is positioned as the protagonist. Heās a bad(guy) protagonist. And the movie slowly sets you up on that. Him leaving his hospitalized daughter is the final and obvious chord, on that. But before that point, its kind of explained that Vincent is as good as he is at his job, because he his the way he is. Kind of a bad guy. No friends. Often absent for his family (and no friends helps him to keep doing that). But heās also in the good guy role.
Neil has a heart. He encourages Chris to fix his relationship. Heās good to his friends. And he falls for a sweet woman. But I donāt think Neil is ever really setup as āgoodā. Heās the badguy. full stop.
As for āmonogamy is evilā: Iām not even gonna touch that.
that the outcomes of the characters all follow the rules of the world of the film, including neil. thereās not supposed to be an eady until later, but now there is. so for him āthe reward is now worth the stretch.ā once he meets eady being out of character is in character for neil mccauley. not ignoring her completely in the bookstore was out of character, it happens in life sometimes.
well thatās your problem. and clearly she went with him in the end. christ give the lonely art student some time to adjust to the news of her boyfriend having just killed a fuckton of cops.
also neil mccauleyās victims in heat: a rich corporate money launder, a white supremacist serial killer of black sex workers, cops, banks. he was a hero and there should be a statue memorializing him at that airfield where he was murdered by vincent hanna.
neil is shooting at those cops way ahead of them. what else would he be doing. the next shot is literally his pov and the roadblock way down the street. the cops ānever get a shot offā cause theyāre way the fuck down the road with piddly beretta 92s being hosed with rifle fire. they donāt all just get killed suddenly, it shows the rest pinned down behind the cars.
which is the whole point, neil and co are not trying to hunt and peck every red target on the gta minimap until mission complete, theyāre just trying to hose the place with suppressive fire and punch a hole through and get out. and they donāt just shoot ahead of them thereās several shots of every person in the group at some point both shooting in front of them and behind them. and itās not two guys itās three guys with rifles against a bunch of handgun equipped roadblock cops and vincents team of five people that is almost immediately reduced to three people when one is killed and the other injured.
neils team focuses their fire on the front when theyāre first out of the car because they were just in a car, speeding away from vincentās team that is on foot. and they do it again before they get through to the groccery store because vincentās team has at that time peeled off to go after cherrito who gets separated from neil and chris, because vincent and team werenāt standing there with thumbs up ass the whole time, they were shooting at them from behind, with some success. Only one guy out of the entire crew got out unscathed.
plus itās the 90s everyone has iron sights, hit percentages arenāt going to be the best, and neals crew is going to be way more trained than everyone else. even the actors were outshooting actual cops in no time in their training.
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Mannās films are always about the tension between rules and romanticism, and itās so good especially within design. He wants to go off on these lyrical moments or escapes or even colors but he knows the rules, he knows how the studio game is played, he knows his craft like his characters do, and he has to play the whole bloody game to its end
oh, yeah, there were those people in the groccery store parking lot who were running around and caught some rounds too but you know what
āif itās between you and some poor bastard whose wife youāre gonna turn into a widowā¦ā
hey hanna, you know what would of resulted in 0 widows. just letting them rob the insured bank you maniac.
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The last couple shots before Neil and Chris turn off to the store, reads to me that all of the police at the cars are dead or incapacitated. and thatās why Neil is able to hobble away, dragging Chris.
Which doesnāt seem correct to me, considering the distances they were shooting from and the fact that they were mostly spraying. Cover fire, ok, yes. But nailed 'em all? Such that Neil isnāt shot in the back as he drags Chris away?
and then right after that, he whips around and shoots some cops from the hip, with Chris on his shoulder, at about 30 yards.
Iām not trying to scrutinize every shot. But it just doesnāt seem any ābetterā than anything else, to me. Besides yeah, they look like they had a plan when they were going down the straight stretch toward the road block.
If Iām not mistaken, he already says he can pay for her to live, well before he decides to do the final job. I didnāt feel that doing the final had anything to do with her. and certainly went against his usual self.
But I mean, the Diner scene is supposed be a whole lot of stuff at once. and if anything, its really distilling who these two guys are. and Neil says and then re-affirms that that he doesnāt do jobs destined to lose and heās ready to walk (away from a woman) at any moment.
Now, the entire movie weāve seen how good he is at his ājobā. So I really did not like him folding on that at the end. It reads to me as a convenient way to get to the final showdown. As soon as he didnāt walk away from the last job, I knew he was destined to lose. and didnāt feel as interested in the remainder of the movie.
We didnāt see throughout the whole movie, how he actually handles himself with love interests. So thatās all well and good that he might fold, here, when we actually see him in such a situation. Most people donāt always walk the talk. I just think the Eady sub-plot is the weakest of the movie, as it is. And actually should have been more directly the reason he gets caught ( a tip from her or having her along makes him sloppy or whatever). Cuz thatās supposed to be the whole surprise: he doesnāt walk the talk, with Eady. As far as he knew, he had nothing to lose. He had money and he had the girl. He could have walked away with everything. *Or he could have got himself back to consistency and just split and left with only himself!
there is a shot of a cop trying to poke his head out from behind a car in this very series of shots your talking about.
neal is behind that car in front of him here when he sees chris get hit. theyāre literally just shooting across the street now at the spot theyāve been shooting at the entire time at this point. itās fifteen feet (I measured on google maps). thatās close quarters distance with a rifle. not to mention sizemore gets a bunch of them from the other side of the street as well with the 7.62. the cops have handguns. I donāt know what youāre expecting here, some cop just called off his donut break with an iron sighted 9mm beretta he barely qualifies with once a year to stand up and trade shots against multiple vested up guys with easily controllable automatic rifles who know where he is? the fact that any of them stupidly try to take the title shot and shoot back at all instead of just laying on the ground waiting for their commendation for bravery is the unrealistic thing.
also you have the actual north hollywood shootout where some dummies who watched heat and learned nothing from it literally just stood there and shot it out with the cops for like a half hour.
I guess putting the moving and shooting parts together takes more practice than watching movies.
heās saying that cause heās thinking of the things heās got lined up. heās like caan in thief when he has a way to make the life heās imagining happen āmuch faster now.ā when kelso lays out the bank score neal is real impressed by the numbers, so weāre impressed, because we know neal is a highline pro. and heās constantly working overtime to make the bank work, paying off kelso himself after the drive-in deal with van zant goes wrong etc, cause the reward is worth the risk, which he says several times.
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Please sign my petition for a parker blog of painstakingly breaking down squad tactics and character motivations vis a vis outlaw values of every crime movie
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Just now remembering for the hundredth time that parker was the best writer on abdn, I always forget this for some reason until it hits me again like a lightning bolt
(thread) in the final shootout of āthe way of the gunā, they waste way too much ammo for carrying single stack 1911s. mcquarrie once said heād like to remake the movie but that of course no one would ever let him do it. if such a remake were to exist however, hereās what firearms I think each character should carry to best reflect their personality and also modern gunfighting trends: (1/556)
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james caan carries a hi power and one extra magazine in his wind breaker pocket itās been there for 20 years and the springās probably fucked and so are most of the primers on the cartridges he has never, ever swapped out donāt fight me on this you know itās true
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WOULD
READ
a remake of this movie that is exactly the same in every way except the gun combat is even more realistic would be a hell of a thing
from where Neil is standing in that shot, to those cop cars, is probably over 30 yards.
yeah it is like 25 yards my first measurement was wrong. but I mean itās not like rifles are 10 feet and in only weapons here, thatās still close quarters, across the street, at a roadblock. if I can land in the black on a b8 target at 25 yards with a handgun why canāt neil mccauley hit a sideways cop car with a rifle
Best sequence of images
In theory, alas not in practice
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A review of the first 15 minutes if Endgame that I got to see peacefully before being called into work: it was alright, I guess
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this is happening because of the bad karma I accrued because I wanted to yell out āYO DUST THAT KID, THANOSā after he said he wanted ketchup on his hot dog
NEXT TIME, IāLL ACTUALLY DO IT
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