05
Permission to Kill
Posted by Justin
One of the most aggravating tropes in movies — at least to me — is the oh-so-noble hero who, after engaging in a life-or-death battle with a villain, decides at the last possible second to spare his life. Mind you, this guy’s been trying to kill to the good fella, and they haven’t been pulling punches in the past five, ten minutes. But we all know that nobody really gets killed during the end of the film fights; sure, there’s some wounding, a moment where the hero looks doomed and stages a comeback, but it’s not like either the good or bad guy get in a lucky blow that happens to go through the other guy’s head.
There’s some bizarre unwritten rule in Hollywood that it’s not just enough for the good guy to win, but he has to win in this precise order:
- Big fight
- Hero gets the upper hand, villain falls on his knees or some other submissive pose and is deemed helpless and pathetic
- Hero prepares for the coup de grâce, but either flinches away from the final blow, throws the gun away, or something similar.
- Hero makes some houghty-toughty remark about being “better” than the bad guy, having mastered his anger or somesuch crap. Then he turns his back on the bad guy and walks away, mostly out of stupidity.
- Humiliated, the villain grasps at the nearest knife/gun/German Shepherd, possibly says a defiant phrase, and takes far too long to make good on the backstabbing.
- The hero whips around and takes out the bad guy in 0.1 seconds flat.
You see this ALL THE TIME. All I can conclude is that at some point, Hollywood studio execs determined that it would be far too callous and/or unsatisfying for the hero to kill the villain during or right after the fight. You see, no matter what the bad guy has done in the past, he has to give one final proof of his evil nature, finally giving permission to be executed in whatever snarky manner the hero has prepared.
None of it makes sense. If you’re fighting in self-defense a couple minutes earlier, then you’re more than justified to eliminate this threat permanently, even if he gets disarmed. There shouldn’t be this pang of conscience — this guy just tried killing you, probably your family, and succeeded in brutally murdering tons of other folks. Audiences wouldn’t condemn a clean kill at this point, because they’re not so stupid as to be blind to the fact that he crossed the line a while back that makes him fair game.
And what’s with the turning your back on the guy who, just a minute ago, was attempting to end your life? Humiliation doesn’t render someone completely impotent, it just ticks them off even further. I don’t get why the hero, if he has to spare the bad guy’s life, couldn’t keep a gun trained on him until the cops arrive, or at least tie him up or something. What is the best possible outcome of turning your back and walking away? That the villain will learn his lesson out of shame and do nothing but good from then on out? Sure, that’s possible, but that’s also quite a gamble. What if he just bides his time and comes for your family in the middle of the night, gassing them in their sleep, and you have to go to their funeral with the knowledge that it’s all because you’re an idiot who doesn’t know to keep the bad guy in front of you at all times?
I’m just saying that no matter who tells you “if you kill him, you’ll be just like him” — that’s a lie. You aren’t evil, you haven’t been trying to murder half of the civilized world, and you’d be doing a public service by ending it all. And besides, we all know that you’re going to end up shooting him in the face in a couple more moments, so why not spare the drama and get it done with?
Of course, it’d be awesome if an action movie ended like that and the hero not only shoots without pausing, but then turns around and declares himself the evil emperor supreme and all shall bow before his mighty wrath. I’d be applauding at the end credits of that film.
The part in Serenity where the Operative says he’s unarmed and Mal says “Good!” and shoots him. Good stuff, although he should have put one in his head.
The Magnum PI episode “Did you see the Sunrise” where he askes the KGB guy if he saw said sunrise, and when the KGB guy says he did, shoots him. Also good stuff.
Too true. The old fallacy “More is always better.” This trope is about packing as many “moral points” in a couple of seconds as possible. Hypocrisy on multiple levels.
Luckily, at this point in a movie, the adrenalin dulls my pain somewhat, so I guess there are worse tropes.
But to end on a positive note, let’s list great examples where this trope is avoided. I’ll be the fanboy and say: Serenity.
This brings to mind the end of “Darkman” as a counterexample. Hero has bad guy dangling off a 40-story building. Villain says something like “face it – you’re a good guy. You couldn’t live with yourself if you just killed me.” Hero drops him, says “I’ve learned to live with a lot of things.”
That’s one of the things I like about James Bond- if you’ve killed innocent people or tried to kill him, he will take you out. No hesitation, just one between your eyes. There’s that scene in Dr. No where it LOOKS like he stupidly gives an assassin a chance to regain his gun and shoot him… but the gun is empty, which Bond knew because he counted the shots. So he just coolly says, “That’s a Smith & Wesson, and you’ve had your six” and then calmly plugs the guy. Now THAT’S cold.
All very true. However, I think some of the blame should go to the writers as well. Admittedly it’s easier and more fun to blame everything wrong with movies and TV shows on faceless studio suits. But it’s my belief that’s writers are perfectly capable of employing such trite cliches without any prompting.
One of my favorite moments in the Firefly pilot is when Mal comes on board with the Reavers in hot pursuit and just shoots the Fed, no muss, no fuss. It’s an awesome moment, precisely because it defies this. For that matter, so is when Han shoots Greedo first.
Good rant
This phenomenon is actually a pet peeve of my girlfriend. It’s amusing to see this beautiful, soft spoken, peace loving girl (who has criticized me for being too mean and snarky to people) literally yelling at the screen, “Don’t let him Go?! Just KILL HIM!!!”. Liss, you hit it on the head mentioning Firefly, tho I was specifically thinking of the scene in “The Train Job” when Niska’s thug gets casually kicked through the ships engine. I laughed for days. In point of fact, I’m still chuckling about it. hehehehe. =)
I’m with Lissa. Great post, fearless leader.
Well, I *did* use that picture for a reason…
Thanks for the comments!
Another example from Firefly, at the end of the train job, where Mal offers the henchmen a chance to go home, and the guy says he’ll hunt him down and kill him, and then Mal says “darn” and kicks him into the engine.
More examples of cliche-killing from Firefly:
In “War Stories,” when Mal is fighting with Niska’s thug, and Zoe says, “This is something the Captain has to do for himself.” Mal replies, “No! No it’s not!”
The best anti-cliche kill begins with those immortal words: ‘Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.’
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