Alejandro Gillick is a sick man

Alejandro doesn't care what you think of him, nor what anyone else does. He's too far gone emotionally. He also no longer cares about rules, morailty or law so all you're doing is arrogantly projecting your morals onto a nihilist. No problem with finding his actions reprehensible, but don't paint him as someone who should care about justice in any sense you do.

Anyway, he killed the cop because he was a potential threat and a loose end. It wasn't just about revenge, he was working for the CIA and possibly a Colombian cartel. He had duties to them also.

Alejandro was cartel from a competing organization moonlighting with the CIA.

Not that far fetched either - the US Gov't asked the mafia for help to get rid of Fidel Castro back in the day and the rumor is they were also tapped to get rid of JFK.

Are you suggesting a set of guidelines be established to force studios to present only stories and story elements that are morally acceptable?

note that he spared the servant in the rich man's house at the end. we feel for the cop because of the way he is portrayed, as a caring father, but objectively speaking he is a corrupted cop, a component of the system that kills his countrymen including alejandro's wife and daughter, i don't think we should require alejandro to have too much sympathy for him. and it takes a huge leap of faith on our part to assume that he is somehow a "good" person when we know he is a corrupted cop.

meh i liked his character. i think your being a bit of a pussy about this.

Man's an awesome character, and like Bar said above, he's basically a nihilist at this point. Nothing matters to him, so your points about morality and his care level about it are null. The guy is a walking black hole, and a dangerous one, so he reaps death. There are people out there in the world that don't care about anything - seriously. He just happened to be an elite.

Well that's basically what this movie is about, people who think any means is justified by the end result.

As the other poster said: loose ends. And expediency.

What use was the cop to him at that point? None.

The only thing sparing his life would do would be slow him down. There was no percentage in doing anything more than quickly killing him.

That ruthlessness was intentional, and part of his character.

If you missed the majority of the film, he had been a prosecutor, in one of the most corrupt countries in the world. The line between cop and robber was muddy to begin with. When his family were murdered, and presumably nothing happened (note: his colleague saying what happened to him was wrong, or he felt bad for what happened to him... he wasn't talking about his wife and kids! You don't tell someone you feel "bad" about "what happened" when their family gets melted in acid!).

So he disregarded that idea of good, bad, law, etc because his family had been killed and he had been shafted. What he thought as a law student, or a prosecutor is irrelevant.

He was her, before his family were butchered. Law and order. Good and bad. Right and wrong. The rules didn't apply, didn't work, and only got in the way.

Perhaps this was the tilting point for her at the end. He told her go someplace where she could live the life he had before his family were murdered.