Lombard, the Peckinpah hero


He's the only one who's completely honest about his crime, no pretense about what he is. He knew he was getting into something dangerous and went ahead anyway. He's the most prepared of the prey, and he almost makes it to the end.
He has a drunken party on the last night of his life, sleeps with a beautiful woman, who turns around and kills him--but he dies clean, on his feet in the open air instead of being butchered helplessly, facing his killer and fighting to the last second; the best death in the story.

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Interesting take. I hadn't thought if it like that before, but there are definite parallels to the gray-area protagonist of a Peckinpah film.

Lombard was basically right in his belief that U.N. Owen wouldn't get him. He firmly believed he'd be able to outsmart the killer. While the killer used Vera against him, it was still up to chance. He left the revolver for Lombard to find, and gambled that Vera would be his match when it got down to the pair of them seemingly being the only two left on the island. The killer's gamble paid off.

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