MovieChat Forums > The Italian Job (2003) Discussion > Rooting for the bad guys

Rooting for the bad guys

posted 17 years ago by Komarovski
17 replies | jump to latest

Movies in which the protagonists are charming bad guys are nothing new (The Sting, for example), and they can be great escapist fun, but this one bugs me because so many innocent people have to suffer in order for the protagonists to succeed.

The moment Napster presses his laptop's Enter key and causes numerous car collisions, he transforms from a lovable high-tech prankster to a thoughtless jerk. Then the Minis take off at full speed onto the busy sidewalks and down the stairs to the crowded subway platform with the drivers just assuming the pedestrians will be able to dive out of the way in time. Finally, the plan involves a midtown explosion that showers the terrified people with chunks of asphalt and leaves a gaping hole in the street which will disrupt traffic for weeks while it is repaired at taxpayers' expense.

Up until the Big Plan goes into effect, the movie is enjoyable because it is bad guys battling even badder guys. The execution of the Plan makes the lead characters lose much of their charm.

[–] HumanFundRecipient 17 years ago

I didn't hear anything about this movie being based on a true story. So on that count, I doesn't matter to me whether they were good guys or bad guys, destruction of property (or in this case infrastructure) is nothing new. The Ghostbusters and Die Hard movies come to mind as I write this post.

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(and shovel snow).

[–] Komarovski 17 years ago

Thanks for the response! No, it's not a true story, but that wouldn't matter anyhow. I'm not worried about property destruction, but rather that the bad guys seem to be winning more these days and not caring who gets hurt or has to pick up the tab. Consider Ocean's Eleven, very similar to Italian Job in that it has bad guys going after someone they consider to be a really bad guy (though that's debatable). The lovable gang of criminals steal that EMP bomb and put Las Vegas in a blackout, and the audience is expected to cheer them along. And hey, insurance will pay back anything they steal, so where's the harm?

I'm glad you listed Ghostbusters and Die Hard. Sure they're full of awesome property destruction and the public in peril, but it's all caused by bad guys who are ultimately defeated. If you can think of any movies from more than 20 years ago in which (1) the bad guys win because (2) there are no good guys trying to stop them, I'd appreciate it.

[–] langster 17 years ago

LOL! Are you serious?

It is a film. Nobody pays for the destruction as it never happened. I don't quite see your point, and you have a very anal view to movies if you think like this.

[–] Komarovski 17 years ago

Langster, sorry I lost you. Both your response and the previous one focus on my "property damage at the taxpayers' expense" comment, which is not the main point at all. Please consider the title of the thread. I was simply listing things Mark Wahlberg & Company do that ought to tip the audience off to them being BAD GUYS who are not to be admired. They are sociopathic thieves: they do not care who they hurt as long as they get what they want. But gosh darn it, they are real purty to look at, say witty things and have a great sense of style, so they should win anyhow!

As a comparison, the original 1969 Italian Job ended with (spoiler alert!) the gold-filled bus dangling over a cliff. Do you think an audience today would accept an ending that puts their lovable criminals in jeopardy? Maybe something changed in society. and the movies are just reflecting it.

And YES, I realize this is WAY OVER-ANALYZING a popcorn flick, but I thought IMDb would be a good place to do it. Perhaps it's too "film school." A post along the lines of "Charlize Theron is hot!" would have been a lot easier. And as for your accusing me of having an anal view...couldn't you have said "narrow view"? Anal view...that's just not right. ;)

ETA: Langster, I just read your post in the "I actually prefer the original" thread; your admiration of the original and comments about the remake were spot on. Well said.

[–] user-18049 17 years ago

Please tell me you're taking the piss.

The whole world has, for years despised the fact that in ninety percent of American Flicks the good guys always win.

American movies for the past few decades have always followed a set of unspoken rules where:

Good Guys beat Bad Guys.

Americans beat Foreigners.

America's Political Allies beat America's Political Enemies.

They do go on

In the past few years the world has praised you because you started making the dark, gritty, realistic films that British cinema has been producing for years and i have to say that you are the first person i have heard of in the world who thinks this is a bad thing.

In the real life good things happen to bad people; why not in films too?

[–] porfle 16 years ago

"The whole world has, for years despised the fact that in ninety percent of American Flicks the good guys always win."

Oh, so that's why American films only do well domestically and never make any money anywhere else--because the whole world despises ninety percent of them. Quick, somebody tell Hollywood.

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[–] user-18049 16 years ago

Many good films have never made any money.
Many poor films have made millions.

The amount a film makes at box office does not necessarily correlate with the popularity of a film.

Tops at the Box Office this week (according to imdb front page) are:

17 Again
State of play
Hannah Montana

I've seen these films. And i can confirm that the first and the third are horrifically bad. They will, however make millions, because people (mainly teenage girls) will go and see the films with rose-tinted glasses on because Zac Efron stars, or Miley Cyrus stars.

A better way to get an idea of the quality of a film is to look at the User Rating here on IMDB, but again that also is not definitive.

17 Again does not deserve the 6.2 it has
State of Play deserves more than the 7.8 it has
Hannah Montana deserves its 2.8

What i'm trying to say is that Hollywood is the biggest producer of mainstream films in the western world, and when hollywood saturates the market with crap, if i want to go and see a film at the cinema the choice is often between a crap film and a crap film. This is the situation for most of the year, and this is why Box Office results are not the best place to get your information about how popular a film is.

[–] porfle 16 years ago

You're confusing popularity with quality. If a movie makes a buttload of money at the box office, it's popular, regardless of its quality. Saying that big box office doesn't equal popularity doesn't make sense to me.

My point, though, was that if "the rest of the world" had such a problem with American movies, then they wouldn't be so profitable all over the world.

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[–] user-18049 16 years ago

I'll give you that, i did confuse popularity with quality there.

I think my original post still stands though. We really do despise the fact that we know the ending to the film before we have finished watching it because it has come from Hollywood, we know that Superman is going to overcome that piece of kryptonite stuck in his abdomen, (the bit thats causing him to have trouble standing up) and pick up that huge island from the sea and put it in outerspace. We know that that bad guy who has just robbed the bank and has not made a mistake through his entire existence in the film will make a schoolboy error and leave a fingerprint somewhere, or run out of petrol. We know that somwhow this car chase or the next one is going to end with a big explosion and the bad guys getting killed and/or caught. And it destroys any tension the film could generate in the audience.

And Hollywood films will (sadly) always be profitable around the world, because everywhere we go their advertising is rammed down our throats, busses, trains, TV, newspapers, magazines, billboards...

The market is saturated by crap hollywood films. That is not to say that all Hollywood films are bad, this is certainly not the case, but a vast majority of them are simply there to make rich Americans richer. Which is a shame.

[–] porfle 16 years ago

Who goes to a Superman movie thinking that there's a chance the Kryptonite's actually going to kill him, or that he'll fail to stop the bad guys in the end? That's not what people want from a Superman movie, no matter where they're from. Or, for that matter, a James Bond movie or a Jackie Chan movie.

Plenty of American movies are downbeat or have endings in which the bad guys win. But these usually aren't the big crowd-pleasers that draw big audiences, domestically or abroad. Maybe people just have to seek them out instead of blindly flocking to the films with the biggest advertising campaigns.

I don't see the big problem here, and it's tiresome to hear people constantly griping about "Hollywood crap" movies filled with "explosions", etc. If Americans were the only ones who wanted movies like this, then people in other countries wouldn't be flocking to see them, too. And Hollywood wouldn't make so many of them.

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[–] smitty1941 16 years ago

Well, not to butt in here... but the point I believe the OP was making is the glorification of the bad guys. I completely understand a desire for realism in movies because, yeah, bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people, and happy endings are rare. But that doesn't mean the bad guys have to be exalted. There's a difference between making a realistic film that depicts an unsatisfactory ending and one that makes the bad guys the heroes.

[–] Professor_Peach 16 years ago

-------------------------

As a comparison, the original 1969 Italian Job ended with (spoiler alert!) the gold-filled bus dangling over a cliff. Do you think an audience today would accept an ending that puts their lovable criminals in jeopardy? Maybe something changed in society. and the movies are just reflecting it.

------------------------

Just as an interesting point of fact. My understanding is that in the original they were supposed to get away with it, but they ran out of money so had to come to a stop right there and that was the best way to do it.

But I do take your point. I guess the truth is that you just can't run a film without perceived (obviously not real) threat to innocent public. James Bond films are the same, some of the risks he takes would kill innocents if they were in the way. But cos it's a movie, they never are.

It's a valid point, but I think for the sake of the enjoyment of the movie we have to suspend our disbelief a little and believe that the people in the subway would always get out of the way for example.

To be fair as well, both heists were meticulously planned so's not to hurt anyone, except in self defense (the armed guards on the bikes for example).

[–] JaySherman7 16 years ago

I get what you're saying, but I think it's all relative. I can like certain characters regardless of their morality.

Reservior Dogs is a 'rooting for the bad guys' type film with some men who'd I think would be horrible in real life, but I love them as film characters. Mr. Blonde literally executes random innocent people, but he's one of my favorite film characters ever.

[–] Bonecrusher27 16 years ago

You raise a good point. I was especially disturbed about the part where the minis are crashing about on their way to the tunnel, and you have people jumping out of the way. That seems to me callous. Driving skill is one thing, but the unpredictability of pedestrians is another. Likewise movies in which the hero decides to drive a vehicle through a house, etc, and then crashing out through a wall onto the street outside, where it is hoped, just happens to have nobody on it.

[–] swirlypepper 16 years ago

My personal take on this movie was that we weren't SUPPOSED to think they were good people, they kept saying that it wasn't about the gold but let's face it, it was at least a little bit about the gold ;). Stella's moral "I'm a lock technician, not a thief" very quickly became "I'm all in, whatever it takes", Mad Rob was introduced as having taken the mick just to set the longest car chase in history record and so on. None of them were introduced as being wonderful people, but they were skillful and charismatic. I wanted to see them win because they'd planned, they were talented and I just loved being taken along for the ride as each of them was badass! In real life I'm NEVER going to be able to steal a trcuh full of shiny gold bars so hell yes I'll cheer the protagonists on and feel discouraged when they might not get it.

In short, the moral side you choose to take in a movie doesn't have to reflect the moral decisions you'd make in real life. Every time I watch a gangster/heist/spy movie I want them to go to any means necessary to get their goals. I enjoy revelling in their confidence, intelligence and charm. And since revering them won't make me order a hit on the next person that pisses me off in real life I don't see the harm for cheering on for the morally questionable :D

[–] savanna-2 14 years ago

swirlypepper, love this explanation/analysis! Very well put. Live vicariously through the characters in the film for thrills and chills, not a blueprint for carrying out life in the real world. OP, I had some similar thoughts as you, as the movie drew to an end, w. the crew toasting to a heist (illegally) well done. However, I prefer this type of film (more property damage & inconvienced people) to the films that carry out a similar premise, with a wake of human carnage as the means to the end.

[–] joshuayeary 13 years ago

Can I say that I totally see what you are saying? It seems everyone comes back with "It's just a movie!"

Yes, it is, as ANY movie is. But aren't you free to not like what goes on in a movie? If they made a movie about a lovable pedophile who in the end wins everyone's heart, wouldn't a lot of people have a problem with it, even though it was fiction, and "just a movie"?

The portrayal of the bad guys in The Italian Job doesn't bother me as much as it does you, but I can see why it might. Even though the crimes they are committing are wrong, we are supposed to believe that they are inherently still good people. We are still supposed to like them. But writing a character that we are supposed to like and then having show no regard for the safety of innocent people around them could leave a sour taste in some people's mouths.