Kyle Smith, Wall Street Journal
What has come over liberals? Suddenly they've turned bloodthirsty. And they're not just lobbing "Daily Show" coffee mugs or brandishing the rusty business end of their DEAN 2004 campaign pins. Liberals are locked, loaded and licensed to kill--at the movies.
The new Jodie Foster film, "The Brave One," is the latest in a string of left-wing Bush-era movies about violence. These films--which range from popcorn flicks (the "X-Men" series, "The Hills Have Eyes 2") to more ambitious works and Oscar nominees ("A History of Violence," "V for Vendetta," "Munich," "Blood Diamond")--so deeply entangle killing with liberal idealism, though, that at times their scripts are as muddled as EEOC directives or U.N. rules of engagement. For all of the critical acclaim that attended most of these films, few are as effective as "Dirty Harry" or "Death Wish." . . .
The makers of these films must be disappointed, though, that audiences remain more interested in crisp revenge than messy guilt. Steven Spielberg's "Munich," for instance, which chastises Israel for retaliating against the Palestinians involved in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, was completely misread by a character in this summer's hit comedy "Knocked Up," who was cheered by audiences when he said: "That movie was [star] Eric Bana kicking f--ing ass! In every movie with Jews, we're the ones getting killed. 'Munich' flips it on its ear. We're capping motherf--ers!" Americans made it clear which film they thought missed the point: In the U.S., "Knocked Up" earned more than three times as much at the box office as "Munich." |