MovieChat Forums > Short Cuts (1993) Discussion > Girl killed by Chris Penn's character

Girl killed by Chris Penn's character

posted 14 years ago by sim7396
8 replies | jump to latest

I was surprised to read the following in more than one thread:

It also seems weird that her death was described as "death by falling rocks". Wouldn't her friend tell the police what really happened?

I'm surprised that people keep mentioning this. As you know, what is reported first on the TV news is whatever info becomes available, and that's seldom complete. When the news anchor said "a girl was killed by falling rocks but we don't know yet if it was earthquake-related" that is not the definite, complete story. It's simply the news as it unfolds on the day of the quake. If you care to follow the news a day or two later, you'll probably get a more complete picture of what happened ("deranged man killed young woman with a stone just as the earthquake started," or something like that).

That's something I absolutely love about Altman's movies: they mimic real life in a way that few movies do.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Long_Ball_Larry 11 years ago

I was actually under the impression that he drowned the witness and she's the girl the fishing buddies find.

[–] Struckworld7767 11 years ago

Yeah but then that completely ruins the timeline of the movie.

I'm from Paris... TEXAS

[–] henrimaine 11 years ago

I thought the killing of the girl was kind of unnecessary for the movie. Why was it necessary to turn the Chris Penn character into a (serial) killer just before the movie ended?

[–] sim7396 11 years ago

One killing hardly makes you a serial killer. I agree with you that the killing may be unnecessary, but the purpose of the scene was to show how people sometimes snap and do the unthinkable. This was a guy who was numb about his wife's phone job, his loser life, etc., etc., and one day he snapped and did something very extreme. A violent death is something extreme that may happen.

[–] franzkabuki 11 years ago

Don`t know about necessities, but that was the logical place for his character to go. Bit of a climax there.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] jellyree 11 years ago

Oh come on, it was Chris Penn!

[–] lukas1985 9 years ago

serial killer?

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