I watch this every time it comes on but i have to wonder...
COuldn't they make Stu a little more deserving of this treatment?
A shallow publicist who flirts with clients...how does he possibly compare to the pedophile and the crooked stock broker? Were they afraid to make him someone who truly deserves the sniper's twisted vigilante justice or was it written by someone who hates publicists?
He was having an extra marital affair, he was exploiting a young intern, he lied for a living, he was arrogant and rude to anyone who wasn't useful to him.
The little things all built up to make him seem a reprehensible human being. But not so reprehensible that we couldn't sympathize with his terror and regret.
He was TRYING to have an extra marital affair. Young interns are exploited all the time. Who doesn't lie for a living? And his personality is typical agent. Still not worthy of the killer's attention.
But thanks for the response
Totally agree with you on that point. The caller said he targeted other violent offenders before Stu, so why didn't he continue to target violent offenders? Child molesters, rapists, murderers,etc. Stu was immoral but nothing he did was illegal, and he never caused physical harm (or emotional harm, really) to anyone. I could not buy into the movie because of this. And Stu was a wimp, I couldn't root for him to win.
shareI thought this too. Especially considering the other two victims were truly reprehensible people. Stu at worst is a con man, but he's more consistently an industry shill. The whole point of Stu is that he's such a fraud, and so small time he can only lie to himself and nobody's successfully. He's hardly a danger, and although the movie doesn't specifically say so, I think it's implied he hasn't done anyone any great deal of damage. Hell, he didn't even cheat on his wife. He was tempted, but show me one married couple where that isn't the case.
shareI don't consider this a flaw. Making him an outright felon would have been too easy. There are laws against stealing and sexual assault, even if many people slip through the cracks. There are no laws against being a lying a$$hole and there are elements of our society which encourage this behavior. If the caller had only targeted criminals who escaped justice, then the film would be just another one of the endless variations on the vigilante idea. What it did instead was far more original: make Stu a man whose "crimes" are so common and accepted that nobody thinks of them as crimes anymore. Remember how at first he has no idea what he did wrong. He has no reason to think of himself as a menace, since he's simply one more example of the amoral, me-first mentality that infects much of today's corporate world. You don't notice what doesn't stand out.
shareVery, very good points. I didn't think about the everyday morality that we've become so used to that we don't even think about it.
But if that's what the Caller is after, i'd start with a politician in Washington D.C. rather than a low-level nothing who flirts and lies. But i guess they wanted him to be as close to an Everyman as possible.
''But i guess they wanted him to be as close to an Everyman as possible.''
yep stu was no worse than most people really, he was no angel yet at the same time he wasn't really somebody we can look at and hate for his sins simply because so many [if not all] of us have done or still do them too- the usual cheating, lying, hypocrisy, bullying, exploiting people... yea not nice things but as an audience it still speaks to most of us as we are all like Stu in ways, had it been a rapist or murderer then it would be harder to engage/relate to the audience.
Wow. Great comment man! You are right and I hadn't thought about it that way.
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I always thought maybe the pizza delivery guy was a child molester or a rapist and the Caller always intended to kill him, but as a bonus use him to teach Stu a lesson.
I feel like the Caller didn't necessarily want to shoot Stu, if it would have happened - then okay, but he was satisfied when Stu finally came clean.
Life is like a movie. Only you can't pick your genre.
Stu wasn't as bad as the other "victims" of The Caller but he was no saint. However, if Stu, our main protagonist, was as bad as the others, it would be really hard for the audience to root for him no matter how much he changed. I too think the pizza guy wasn't innocent either, as The Caller didn't seem like a guy who would just target innocent people
sharethe point is that it could happen to anyone.
if they make him deserving of the treatment if he killed a person or something like that well the audience would say "well good thing I didn't shoot anyone."
now that he is a nobody it could happen to anybody and that is the key to making a bit scary.
Maybe that is sort of the point of the movie, that the caller guy is really a psychopath who just happened to on occasion target those that really deserved it but then true to his nature went on to targetting perhaps highly flawed people but still those not deserving fully of such treatment.
(And the fact that he killed the pimp Leon, well, just because he was kind of sabotaging the whole operation, Leon didn't really deserve to get shot and killed did he?)
Heck, in the movie "Se7en" (1995) for instance, the serial killer John Doe mostly killed innocents but ONE of his victims was a drug dealing child molester, but that aspect alone doesn't anywhere near totally redeem him or make him overall respectable, right? And what COULD this be saying about him in general as a psychopathic killer that at least one of his victims just happenes to be a really bad guy?
I don't think the Caller had any remorse whatsoever for killing innocent people. He was willing to kill Kelly and Pam and even at one point wanted to kill Captain Ramey. He's probably done it plenty of times. So he is a plain straight killer
shareYeah, the caller IS the criminal. The movie doesn't want to glorify killing and extreme vigilantism. So they made the victim while an asshole but still not outright badguy. Kinda like the movie SAW.
shareYeah... I think our current contemporary audiences have been taught to indentify too much with psychos that they can't differentiate between levels of wrong and are completely blind to the evil of vigelante justice and punishment...
I think it's all the superhero movies that have trained them in this way... In particular The Dark Knight, but it extends to most current superhero movies as the superheros are mostly psychos that audiences are supposed to see as their avatars, while the villians are psychos that have relatable situations or are likable (they are portrayed as victims or hold ideologies presented as true or meaningful, even though they're not, e.g. Infinity War, Joker, etc...)... Add to that all the Tv shows that try to humanise psychos...
The caller guy was a psycho and probably a loner loser.... Stu was just a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time... Stu is flawed, but who isn't?