Some people hate anythign religious so they would probably smile as Allie burned the church. Did you feel the same or feel bad for Spellgood? Even though Spellgood was annoying and self-righteous, i think it was evil for allie to burn down the church as he could have killed people in the process.
shareI enjoyed the payoff of this film, because Allie Fox is a character that I find alienating on a basic philosophical level, never mind his personality traits. Setting aside his qualities as a father and a husband, Allie Fox is one of those individuals who thinks his background in science makes him morally and ethically superior to everyone else. That's why I enjoyed watching his utopia fall apart not long after he left the United States.
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The point of this whole movie is that Allie Fox was just as corrupt as "Christian" leader Rev. Spellgood.
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The other members of the family are the protagonists of the story. We are supposed to feel for them, not Allie or Spellgood.
shareFeel what? Sympathy? For either? Not me. I felt no sympathy for either.
Although some might argue that Allie had by then become a murderer, I do not agree. If men bearing guns tried to take away from me all that I had and loved, I would probably try to figure out how to use what weapons I had available to me to prevent that, too.
However, by the time he got shot by the not-so-good reverend, I felt that Allie had become a very willing thief, vandal, and arsonist, and very deserving of at least some form of retribution for his crimes.
As far as the reverend goes, however, I can understand why he, too, would want to try to protect the things he had and loved by using his gun. He probably had already had run-ins with machine-gun-totists like we'd seen in Jeronimo, and felt the need to arm himself and protect his home, his possessions, and his loved ones.
However, the moment that he fired his gun at the first human form he could perceive in the darkness is where I lost all sympathy for him. Shooting an armed man is one thing. Shooting an unarmed man is something entirely different. And what if he had shot someone else? Someone like, say, his daughter? Now THAT would have been a more-than-charming ending for an outrageously annoying guy like that.
Nope, no sympathy for either of them from me. All my sympathy goes to his wife and children, and a whole lot less of it to the wife than to the children, which, guess what, is where it was supposed to be all along. This was the oldest son's story, after all. Not the dad's.
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>**Dash the Neighbors! And, dash the expense!"
As brightfamous wrote it was hard to feel sympathy for either one at the end - the Reverend was exploiting religion for material gain while Fox, in his madness, has willingly endangered and remorselessly abused his family simply so he can live out his survivalist fantasy, the consequences be damned. On top of that, Fox then knowingly endangered the lives of locals who had never done any harm to him or his family simply because they got sucked into the Reverend's fad.
Like the rest of the film the ending brings up some interesting ideas on the deeper meaning of Allie Fox ultimately dying at the hands of the Reverend - what does it truly mean? Is it the ultimate triumph of the world, the real world with all its flaws, all those flaws that Allie Fox just could not tolerate, triumphing over Fox's fantasy utopia where he could run around playing the ultimate handy-man using whatever was available to build his own little world where he could be the king? Is it a symbol of reality crushing fantasy? Or is it the individual who marched to the beat of his own drum being consumed and destroyed by the faceless corporations he despised?
The preacher murdered Allie, plain and simple. It wasn't just about burning a church. When he got Allie in his sights he saw his chance for revenge. He had legal cause to shoot him, but he also could have had his followers hold him and turn him in to the authorities.
So in the end, the forces of oppression, intolerance, punishment and fear (ie, western civilization) prevailed over freedom, individuality and self expression.
I totally agree with Allies opinion of missionaries. They travel the world forcing their religious dogma on people who are too ignorant to know any better. Their real goal is psychological enslavement, followed by economic and political oppression.
We got a job.
What kind?
...The Forever Kind.
Allie seemed mentally ill, paranoid personality disorder perhaps. His wife though shouldn't have blindly followed him and put her children through that. She should have left him and at least tried to find a way back home.
If I absolutely HAD to choose between the two I would have to say Spellgood, at least by the movie's conclusion. Being a self righteous jerk is one thing, being an psychotic self righteous jerk that burns down buildings is another matter. I'd probably put a bullet in someone perpetrating arson on my property, too. Really though, Allie and Spellgood were just two sides of the same coin, until Allie became so detached from reality at the end that he had simply become a monster.
That said, between the two Allie DID have more qualities that I admired (hard working, very intelligent, motivated, visionary, etc.) which unfortunately winds up making him all the more tragic when his egotism (really, his only failing but it was more than enough) causes all of those qualities to work entirely towards feeding that egotism and leading to his downfall.