MacGuffin Film Podcast Episode 125 - By Their Own Rules

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Episode 125 – By Their Own Rules

Date: Tue, 7 Feb, 2012 at 11:49 PM | Author: Spencer Fornaciari | Category: Podcast Releases

In honor of Safe House, Spencer and Greg discuss Denzel Washington. Then they look at cops who play by their own rules, before giving DVD picks of the week.

For his DVD pick, Spencer selected the powerful documentary . Greg went for the pleasant surprise .

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Spencer Fornaciari

Co-Host/Editor-In-Chief Seattle, WA

Spencer grew up with the many great films of the 1980’s before having his world rocked after seeing The Usual Suspects. That film inspired him to become a filmmaker.

Follow him on or .

Comments

Allen

Have to disagree about American Gangster, I thought the ending – while not great – was fine. Many criminals, facing the rest of their lives in jail, will easily flip and rat out their associates. If anything, the weakness of the ending was that they made it too abruptly, depicting the entire fall of police corruption in to one scene.
Spencer Fornaciari

The problem wasn’t that he flipped, but a criminal as bad as him was able to flip. We see him shoot someone in the head in the movie…I can’t feel sympathy for someone who kills someone in cold blood. This isn’t Catch Me If You Can. I realize it is based on reality…but that makes me more sad about our society than anything.

And you are right, to have fall of the corruption in one scene was too short.
Allen

Wouldn’t that be more of his nature though? If he’s a monster his natural instinct would be to survive by any means necessary, right?
Spencer Fornaciari

Of course, but the ability to overlook the fact that he was a cold blooded murder is something that makes no sense to me, regardless of why they needed him.
Allen

Hmm, I don’t think the film over looks the fact that he’s a cold blooded murderer. We also need to take in account that the people he’s killing are murderers, pimps, and drug dealers themselve. In fact, I don’t think there was ever a time in the film where he killed a completely innocent victim.
Spencer Fornaciari

Does it matter though if they were bad people? Just because he kills another villain doesn’t make him a hero. And I assume you are ignoring the fact that his drugs destroyed their community and lead to all the violence since it wasn’t him killing them physically himself.

The law is supposed to be above that. Sure the corruption side was bad, but if we need murders to solve our problems I think that speaks to a bigger issue.
Allen

I agree with that. I’m not saying that Denzel’s character is a good guy, because he’s not. What I was saying was the ending worked for me because that’s his nature: he has a facade of righteousness but when the chips are down will do anything for his own sake. I don’t think the film is asking for our sympathy.

Or did I completely loose track of our discussion? Haha.
Spencer Fornaciari

No, I don’t necessary fault Denzel’s character for doing that either. I find it out of character for Russell Crowe. Up until that point he had been the beacon of hope in law enforcement, someone above the muck. He had been pursuing Denzel the whole movie and to at the end have him accept the help of his rival to work on another problem felt like they cut in a completely different movie to me (whether it is reality or not). Sort of the same way I felt about Million Dollar Baby. That was not the movie
journey on-board with. Sort of a bate and switch.
Allen

I see what you’re saying, the film pits the two against each other but at the end they work together. The way I see it, if Crowe’s character is such a good guy, then it’s understandable that he would want to take down bigger fishes, even if it means working with the guy he originally was after.

The biggest issue I had with the film was it’s structure, there’s so much involved and going on that a feature film is too small to contain it. Maybe a miniseries would have been more appropriate.
Spencer Fornaciari

I will agree that it would’ve been better as a mini-series. I just found the transition from villain to hero far too abrupt, if they could elaborate on that some more that would really help me.
Edmusinc

I know you were keeping it to movies, but one of the great “cops who play by their own rules” was Vic Macky on The Shield. Michael Chiklis was on par with watching James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano.
Brandi

The Shield is full of cops playing by their own rules. The thing I love most about that show is how it really shows the conflict between those cops and the by-the-book ones, something that movies often gloss over with a “get your act together!” lecture from a boss or a sneer from a co-worker who seems jealous of the “cooler” main character. Mackey & his cohort vs. Wyms & Wagenbach made for some extremely compelling TV, and the viewer was always put in a complicated position as for who to root for at any given time. Great, great stuff.
Spencer Fornaciari

Yeah, I’ll add my support to the recommendation of the Shield, it is a great show and a good example of playing by their own rules, but if you open up the discussion to include TV it is like the top 5 anti-heroes list…it probably would be all TV since their allowed to develop so much more. The Wire, Justified, Chicago Code, etc…TV is great for cops playing by their own rules.
Edmusinc

You’re right. And Amen about The Chicago Code. It was cancelled all too quickly.