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Johnson has apparently set his particular calling card as a director to be "All extremely rich people are simply irredeemable fuckups and only obtain their wealth by luck; the only people who are trustworthy, empathetic, or heroic are the salt-of-the-earth working class." No comment on the fact that the working class also correlates with Trump support in the U.S.
He even shoehorned that into STAR WARS of all things.
Which is... FINE, but he ends up making the rich characters into blatant, openly incompetent fuckups, and not just subtly ineffective, nor does he add any other facets to their character. So when he doesn't give them any moments which might allow the viewer to empathize with them and he does minimal work to humanize them, the ultimate effect (to me) is that it feels smug and nasty.
And likewise, I don't even buy that they 'lose' in the end. The irony here is that Johnson wants to have his cynical cake and eat his idealistic ice cream too. That is, he posits a view of the world where rich (but incompetent) people dominate most industries and use their influence to pull the wool over everyone's eyes. There's no way for the common man to strike at them in a way that will matter.
Then, enter Benoit Blanc, who can outmaneuver the rich dummies, see through their deceptions and machinations, and use their own blackened souls against them to arrange for their downfall, then handing that off to the enlightened everywoman to enact the final, decisive blow. Johnson works very hard to make his 'good' ending irrefutable and irreversible.
But to believe that you'd have to ignore the rest of the message that wealthy, connected people are able to use their influence to manipulate outcomes. In this world, shortly after the movie ends, all the wealthy assholes are going to hide behind expensive lawyers, bring in PR firms to spin the story, and while yes they're almost certainly financially ruined for the short term, I rather doubt they will end up serving jail time or losing 'everything.' Okay, the billionaire will probably serve a LOT of jail time for murder (but maybe not) so that's something. But in order to believe that the 'bad' people 'lose,' you have to both believe that all of them were 'bad,' and that they have fully 'lost.' And I wasn't convinced of either by the end. And that's because of the world Johnson set up for us, not my own cynicism!
He wants to push forth the idealistic vision that a smart, educated, clever interloper like Blanc, who champions all the 'right' ideas too, can assist an underprivileged, exploited commoner to win against connected, wealthy idiots through sheer effort and persistence when the stakes are high enough. But then he has to end the movie before reality ensues and the world he posited reasserts and reverses most of the alleged gains.
Side note, whilst I get that destroying the Mona Lisa as a cultural artifact to get some revenge is an iffy message, I think the core idea that the Protag had been extensively and personally wronged by the villains and thus wouldn't give a damn about destroying a mere physical possession was completely valid. A human being was killed, and you're more outraged at the destruction of a tiny little portrait?
That might be one of the few truly interesting points the movie makes.
Also, the real 'twist' wasn't one that the viewer could have reasonably guessed in advance, I think, so I find it a bit bad faith to hide so much from the viewer, rather than merely misdirect their attention so they miss or misinterpret the clues. There were NO clues as to the switcheroo, so the audience was just left in the complete dark until the flashbacks, which recontextualized everything. And that was neat, but a bit unbecoming of an actual mystery story where the audience is looking for clues. But then again, with modern genre-savvy audiences it may have been impossible to fool them if there were any clever clues hidden in plain sight, so perhaps this was the only way to pull it off.
All that said, I still enjoyed it. I don't think one can effectively deny Johnson's pure technical skill as a writer and director.
P.S. people keep saying he's targeting Joe Rogan and Elon Musk specifically, and I see why, but that seems more based on the particular cultural moment rather than the intent when he wrote or even directed it.
The billionaire asshole is much closer to a pastiche of Steve Jobs and other tech founders than Musk in particular. Especially since Musk, of all Billionaires, is not the one who would spend gratuitous amounts of money on a private island with a giant architectural abomination on display. As far as I know, he doesn't own an island, or even a yacht. So 90% of the 'critiques' in this film would roll off him anyway.
The redpill manosphere streamer character also doesn't really fit Rogan. Rogan of course didn't 'lucky break' his way into prominence, he had a lengthy career as a comedian and hosted mainstream TV shows before starting his podcast. And by and large he is known for being a genuine and empathetic guy rather than loudly spouting any particular ideological viewpoint. And given his deal with Spotify, he wouldn't need to cater to some Billionaire's whims to maintain his platform. So again, 90% of the 'critiques' in the film would roll off him.
I genuinely don't think these were the targets Johnson had in mind when writing. He wrote much more generalized sendups of a given cultural archetype and viewers projected the current pop culture bugaboos onto it.
This is a torture versus dust specks argument. The Mona Lisa benefits a huge number of people by a tiny amount each.
So would you accept an outcome where it is never publicly revealed that the Mona Lisa was destroyed, a very convincing forgery is put on display in it's place, and everything continues on as before, with the broader public none the wiser?
People are still, presumably, getting the same benefits from what they believe is the actual Mona Lisa.
It sounds like, morally speaking, this is what you think SHOULD be done to prevent all those dust specks from hitting people's eyes.
No, because I think blissful ignorance is a flaw in utilitarianism and people only benefit here because of blissful ignorance.
So what is the moral harm in the lie, if we assume we cannot un-burn the Mona Lisa?
I will grant for this conversation that we'd prefer the Mona Lisa not be destroyed. But once it is done, you are not in favor of avoiding further harm that would result from people knowing it was destroyed?
Because once it's gone, no amount of money can retrieve it, nor will punishing the parties who destroyed it bring it back.
So what possible benefit is there to publicizing the fact of it's destruction?
You're analyzing it using utilitarianism containing the very flaw I pointed out.
The harm is caused by the Mona Lisa being destroyed. Telling people makes them aware of the harm. The fact that people are more upset when they know of it than when they don't doesn't mean that letting them know about it caused the harm, and counting it as though it did is a flaw in utilitarianism.
How?
I'm confused as to what actual loss is sustained by the burning of the Mona Lisa vs. some piece of random art that was not world famous.
Because the main reason the Mona Lisa is important is because of it's fame/notoriety to other people.
And that fame/notoriety isn't diminished by it's destruction.
People value the existence of the Mona Lisa. Destroying it destroys something which people value.
It is a flaw in utilitarianism that utilitarianism fails to count people's preferences being frustrated as a loss when they don't know that their preferences have been frustrated.
Unless I'm mistaken you're directly invoking a utilitarian argument for why the Mona Lisa has value.
Because people could, in theory, value the copy of the Mona Lisa just as much as the original... if they don't know it is a copy.
Else, from whence could the value come?
If the value is based on the fact that people value it, this gets to my point that replacing it with a copy prevents the actual harm in question.
You seem to be tying the whole situation to how much 'good' people experience due to the existence of the Mona Lisa, and that sounds like Utilitarianism to me.
Deontology would be "It is bad to destroy rare works of art in all cases."
Virtue Ethics would be something like "Good people don't destroy cultural artifacts."
Your ethical basis is, what?
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