Like the 1993'The Temp' , 'Meeting Evil' is a moral parable

Jackson and Wilson are superb !
Richie(S. L. Jackson) is a hired killer and an integral psychopath.
He was "recruited" by a woman to dispose of her poor loser of a husband
John Felton(Luke Wilson)for his life insurance so that he would
be more useful dead than alive.
As a sadist, Richie upon seeing his target decides that it would be just
a pushover, and so why not some fun mixed with work ?
What would more enjoyable than going on a killing spree and then frame his
future victim as the perpetrator ?
Felton at every step proves himself a complete wimp overtaken by events
he cannot understand, and trance-like moves passively toward whatever
fate the devilish Richie has for him.
Also, his cheating on his wife gnaws at his conscience, making him even
more fatalistic.
But Richie finds that his prey is too submissive, and that hurts his
professional pride.
So he challenged Felton to fight back, so that he could have some sport.

Richie is like the devil, an implacable destroyer by (super)nature.
But Felton's wife in this particular instance proves to be even more evil
in that she seeks for financial gain the destruction of her unsuspecting
husband and father of her children, while she had her own infidelity.

And unexpectedly the devil got caught overdoing it at his own game,
unwittingly waking up whatever good there still is in the humans,
making them confront their own sins and repent,
and fight back

which turns out to be his undoing.

The little girl with the dog is symbolic of the gentle angel's presence that sees everything but
doesn't intervene, thwarting however at a crucial moment the devil's one move that could be fatal.

Later, under the rain he comes close to harmthe child but inexplicably can't.


The ending is deftly handled, leaving the spectator with a sense of
"Chastened Elation" !(*)

The way I see it, it is a timeless morality tale with a strong metaphysical
facet.

In some way, the recent "Deadfall" has a somewhat similar message.




(*)The expression is WW2 British Air Marshall Hugh Dowding's,
when speaking of the September 15th 1940 battle over London that saw
the Luftwaffe fail to destroy the RAF, despite the heavy losses
inflicted on the city.