The Ending: Your Thoughts?

(spoilerz)

it seemed plausible and certainly fit the deranged tone of the movie.

i mean, he made a few grand off a college football game. not far out.

his girlfriend, who obviously loved him and was looking for some emotional stability quitting drugs and whoring? not too ridiculous. it was a pretty logical next step in their relationship.

he planted the crack pipe deliberately. he was *beep* up, but he still had a plan.

the big stroke of luck was the italian mobsters showing up and getting blasted by big fate.

i think all of it was real. it made sense that the only thing he kept were the drug addictions.

i have suffered chronic back, neck and general muscular pain for the last 3 years (i'm 20 now) partially from sports-related injuries and i know what it feels like to be constantly looking for a way out.

pretty good ending imo

I didn´t think it was a dream, nor he was high on drugs.

What i didn´t get completly was the acquarium scene. What are we supposed to think?

Now that he met the guy whom he saved and indirectly put him in the drug addiction situation he´s in and finds out that he´s ok, with a job and grateful of him, he´d start think that he must change? That he needs help?

And the phrase: "You know, Chavez... I still hate that I ruined my underwear for you."

Maybe he meant that he hates what happened to him next and is willing to change... Still...

I havent seen the Keitel version but my thought was , what's going on, is he dreaming? Everything seemed to come together for him just out of nowhere and he got some kind of fairy-tale happy ending in spite of all the dirt he did. Its ambiguous but I dont see how its definitely not a dream or drug-induced fantasy. It was cemented for me when I saw he was back to shaking down couples for their drugs. It could be nothing for him ever changed.

It's kind of obvious he dies when he sits down to watch that soccer game on the tv right after he took those really really potent drugs from xhibit who even makes a point that you'll have to cut that stuff up or you will die.

He doesn't cut it with anything, he dies.

When he "wakes up", everything works out for him from then on.

Even the most primitive society has an innate respect for the insane.