This movie I had seen in my teens in the 2000s and I honestly did not understand much of it. All I had seen was a angry man that was being angry.
Fast forward to my 30s and I see this movie as an amazing critique about rampaging capitalism and decaying society where hard working man is abused and broken down to the new form of rampaging capitalism that puts more love and attention to GDP numbers on a piece of paper instead of humans and society.
Bill grew up being told that loyalty is the best thing you can do for your country and in return you will get the rewards of family, good living and prosperity. Fast forward to his waning years and he is divorced and has a restraining order (even though he was never described as "physically abusive", but instead the judge wanted to "make an example of him"), living with his mother in the house his father built/owned, he is replaced in his job by a machine and can't find another job because in his words he is: "over-educated but not skilled enough", and his age is probably not helping.
He is constantly hit from every side with social degradation: street gangs and homeless people bullying him for being too clean and looking privileged (maybe rich) despite the fact that his wallet and briefcase are almost empty.
Hyper-inflation made his savings and earnings worthless.
Food restaurants sell you lies and give you sloppy seconds and no one calls them out for it.
He walks into a golf course and finds that while the middle class struggle in scorching traffic jams and roadblocks to their destination, rich old men own acres and acres of land that could be used by the middle class to improve their living, as a giant golf course.
He walks into a giant mansion with gardens owned by plastic surgeons who's only contribution to society is doing cosmetic surgery for the rich upper class. You basically see where the new "valuable American" in this new abusive hyper Capitalism.
One thing that I don't like is the ending, although the ending you can see it as a parody or caricature.
The movie ends with turning the blame of all the evils of the world on people from the middle class like Bill who see the degradation and sends detective Pete like a antibody white blood cell to destroy the outlier of society, justifying it by staking him with crimes that he did not commit ("You were going to kill your family and yourself").
The movie tells you what to feel for Bill and asks you to ignore everything you have seen.
At the ending of the movie, does anything change? Nope. Absolutely nothing. Bill is just any every day man that could become discontent with society.
The funny thing is that THIS simplification of Bill is very realistic in our decaying society. Every critic of society is labeled an extremist because they don't go through the right channels to critique it. An elitist critiquing society is seen as : "brave, educated and a speaker of truth". Someone from the middle class making a critique of society is seen as: "extremist, violent and dangerous".
This movie was made in 1991 and everything it predicted is as real today as it was then.
Fast forward to my 30s and I see this movie as an amazing critique about rampaging capitalism and decaying society where hard working man is abused and broken down to the new form of rampaging capitalism that puts more love and attention to GDP numbers on a piece of paper instead of humans and society.
Bill grew up being told that loyalty is the best thing you can do for your country and in return you will get the rewards of family, good living and prosperity. Fast forward to his waning years and he is divorced and has a restraining order (even though he was never described as "physically abusive", but instead the judge wanted to "make an example of him"), living with his mother in the house his father built/owned, he is replaced in his job by a machine and can't find another job because in his words he is: "over-educated but not skilled enough", and his age is probably not helping.
He is constantly hit from every side with social degradation: street gangs and homeless people bullying him for being too clean and looking privileged (maybe rich) despite the fact that his wallet and briefcase are almost empty.
Hyper-inflation made his savings and earnings worthless.
Food restaurants sell you lies and give you sloppy seconds and no one calls them out for it.
He walks into a golf course and finds that while the middle class struggle in scorching traffic jams and roadblocks to their destination, rich old men own acres and acres of land that could be used by the middle class to improve their living, as a giant golf course.
He walks into a giant mansion with gardens owned by plastic surgeons who's only contribution to society is doing cosmetic surgery for the rich upper class. You basically see where the new "valuable American" in this new abusive hyper Capitalism.
One thing that I don't like is the ending, although the ending you can see it as a parody or caricature.
The movie ends with turning the blame of all the evils of the world on people from the middle class like Bill who see the degradation and sends detective Pete like a antibody white blood cell to destroy the outlier of society, justifying it by staking him with crimes that he did not commit ("You were going to kill your family and yourself").
The movie tells you what to feel for Bill and asks you to ignore everything you have seen.
At the ending of the movie, does anything change? Nope. Absolutely nothing. Bill is just any every day man that could become discontent with society.
The funny thing is that THIS simplification of Bill is very realistic in our decaying society. Every critic of society is labeled an extremist because they don't go through the right channels to critique it. An elitist critiquing society is seen as : "brave, educated and a speaker of truth". Someone from the middle class making a critique of society is seen as: "extremist, violent and dangerous".
This movie was made in 1991 and everything it predicted is as real today as it was then.