"Death Wish" - Am I the only one who is uncomfortable?

[2D8HP]

....Bronson literally cannot be friends with or romantically interested in anyone without them getting killed by the bad guys so he has a new revenge to get.....

It used to be a joke whenever a new "Deathwish" movie came out:

"Damn that dude had a big family"

[Dr.Samurai]

"Taken" was pretty bad, but not as much as the "24" television series (full disclosure my wife was a fan of that ugly show).

My friend and I were at the movies when we first saw the Taken trailer playing and he leaned over and said "Is this the product of a think tank designed to produce the perfect movie for you?"

I was super pumped for Taken, and it didn't disappoint . I mean... the car chase scene is a little underwhelming and the movie can definitely do without it. But otherwise, awesome movie.

But stuff like Taken is definitely my speed. And the think tank is still going strong. John Wick was incredible.

Superhero movies get a pass because they take place in what are clearly fantasy settings (but I'm not a fan of most of them anyways).

I think actually that superhero movies are trying more and more to take place in the real world. So, back in the day you could spin the planet around by flying really fast and cause time to reverse. But these days, you are bound to limited engagements by United Nations oversight, as an example.

It's vigilantism as an ideology that I find offensive

Well, I think the spirit behind vigilantism is the idea of taking matters into your own hands and seeking that which you want, without relying on others to do it for you.

The stories that share this idea are many and different, but vigilantism is one of them.

Do I think people should be vigilantes, or do I trust people to be vigilantes? No way. But do I appreciate the idea of doing for yourself when all other systems have failed you? Oh yeah!

I invite you to read an essay by Science Fiction writer David Brin:
Our Favorite Cliché

I'll check it out, thanks!

But in any case to the OP's question, no I don't like seeing modern day revenge flicks, I also hate "Zombie apocalypse" films, both make me feel uncomfortable.

Revenge is funny. People are so enamored with the idea of revenge that they *fantasize about being wronged* by someone they don't like just to muse on the revenge they would take against them.

I *love* revenge flicks. For regular people, it's the idea of not letting people wrong you. You can't just be a pushover in life. People have to know that there're boundaries and there's a price for crossing you, whatever that might be. And for the original aggressor, the tale is usually "don't be a d*ck" or "don't be evil" lol, because you never know who you're messing with.

I like Zombie stuff too, though that's a little bit more played out for me than revenge flicks. I like seeing what people do in situations like that.

[Joran]

My friend and I were at the movies when we first saw the Taken trailer playing and he leaned over and said "Is this the product of a think tank designed to produce the perfect movie for you?"

I was super pumped for Taken, and it didn't disappoint . I mean... the car chase scene is a little underwhelming and the movie can definitely do without it. But otherwise, awesome movie.

But stuff like Taken is definitely my speed. And the think tank is still going strong. John Wick was incredible.

I enjoyed the heck out of John Wick, but that may have been because of Keanu Reeves and the incredible fight choreography. Additionally, unlike Taken, John Wick exists in a kind of fantasy, hitman world with its own weird rules so it feels like a departure from the real world.

I felt a little icked out by Taken; it felt like they spent a lot of time establishing that the daughter was still as pure as the driven snow, not like her friend that dies because she isn't. I'm also not a big fan of torture, even done to bad guys, which I think John Wick didn't do.

I kind of remember the ads for the various Death Wish movies on cable tv, but never watched one and don't particularly feel interested in watching this one.

[2D8HP]

....I like Zombie stuff too, though that's a little bit more played out for me than revenge flicks. I like seeing what people do in situations like that.

To each their own, I'm a big fan of Alexander Nevsky, and Casablanca both of which are pro-war, so my tastes may be criticised as well.

[Chen]

My friend and I were at the movies when we first saw the Taken trailer playing and he leaned over and said "Is this the product of a think tank designed to produce the perfect movie for you?"

I was super pumped for Taken, and it didn't disappoint . I mean... the car chase scene is a little underwhelming and the movie can definitely do without it. But otherwise, awesome movie.

But stuff like Taken is definitely my speed. And the think tank is still going strong. John Wick was incredible.

Yeah the Taken movies went pretty over the top pretty quick. But they're still fun to watch. And ridiculous. Like in Taken 2 how he has his daughter throwing LIVE GRENADES around the middle of Istanbul. Or in Taken 3 at the end where he's with the Cop and is like "We good?" and the Cop just nods. You know after he's literally murdered a bunch of people and gotten both civilians and cops killed in his whole adventure.

John Wick is different though in that it is pure fantasy in a non-real world setting. Also great movies though. Can't wait until number 3 :P

[JoshL]

I keep waiting for one of the Taken movies to be Liam answering the phone and saying "you know what? Just keep her"

As for people not knowing the original well enough for a remake, i'd argue that's a good reason to do a remake. If it's a movie everyone still watches, why bother? But if it's an old film that's fallen out of fashion, maybe polishing it up can bring the story to a new audience. Maybe some of them will even chase down the original, and like it (or not). I will agree that there's nothing super unique about Death Wish. Hell, everything Steven Segal did in the 90s had roughly the same plot.

[Kitten Champion]

John Wick wasn't a vigilante though. He's closer to The Bride from Kill Bill, though his reasoning is slightly less personal.

Taken also has an important distinction of its central premise, that he's not just avenging a wrong but also saving his very much alive daughter. That's still vigilantism, but it's a restorative act coloured by violence rather than a purely punitive one, and we can sympathize with him wanting to save his daughter.

[Dr.Samurai]

I'm running out the door but just wanted to say that I don't parse the "vigilantism" line as fine as some other people may.

In Taken, his daughter isn't dead, but he is taking matters literally into his own hands and slamming them against a table, or a sidewalk curb, or the butt of his gun, etc. lol. He is not working with the police, in fact he is defying the police to find his daughter.

Similarly, John Wick's house is broken into, vandalized, his dog is killed, and his car is stolen. And instead of reporting the crime to the police, he goes out and enacts his own form of justice.

I was more responding to 2D8HP's comment on Taken, and explaining why I happen to like these movies. But if I were forced to say if they were examples of vigilantism or not, I would say that they are.

[Mordar]

I think there is a much more basic problem with this remake.

Imagine entering a remake of a movie after it started, not knowing what the title is.
In cases like "IT" or "Wonder Woman", you will instantly recognize what it is they are remaking, even if you hate the result.

The original "Death Wish" just wasn't unique enough to make a remake out of it.
The main concept, character and plot is so generic, you might as well call it "A revenge movie", and it will change nothing.
The ONLY reason they use that name is to cash in nostalgia, and in this case it will be more obvious compared to other remakes.

I don't have much to back this up at the moment, but I believe Death Wish was seminal, not generic. Sure, there were other revenge movies out there, but it made a big enough splash or mark that it became a cultural phenomena and spawned 4 sequels...and much like "Dirty Harry" kind of became the name for the entire style (ala "Pampers" used to refer to all "diapers").

So yeah, in 2018 it looks like the 1974 movie was just another vigilante revenge fantasy...but it was viewed in the 70s/early 80s as *THE* vigilante revenge movie.

Nope, that doesn't mean it needs to be remade, rebooted or re-anything though. Through the magic of modern technology, you can be transported back to 1974 and watch it again...on DVD or whatever.

- M

[Rogar Demonblud]

Yeah, the Seinfeld effect. It looks bog standard typical because of how many other copycats there are out there. Similar to how Die Hard reformatted the action movie genre to include humorous one liners instead of wannabe badass one liners.

[Kitten Champion]

I think part of the issue is that it's Bruce Willis is the star. Yeah, I criticized his recent acting before and that still stands, but what I mean here is that he's become something of a signifier of "this is movie for your dad" by studios. There's certainly a market for "for your dad" movies - they're releasing a sequel to The Equalizer this year for instance - but it doesn't imply much in the way of freshness or creativity will be applied to interpreting this property and that takes a lot of the "this could be worth a second look" feeling that casting someone outside the predictable mould would galvanize.

[2D8HP]

FWLIW, the first "Death Wish" was very slow moving (like a lot of early '70's films), and IIRC the guys Bronson's character fights aren't even the same crooks that killed his wife, and it's less celebratory than the sequels (judging by the trailers, I only ever saw the first film, and I missed some of the middle portion) and it's much more ambiguous than some imitators.

Not comfortable viewing at all, and I'd only recommend it to someone studying the '70's.

[Fiery Diamond]

I'm always a little confused by the anti-vigilantism stance. But then, I'm always greatly confused by the anti-death penalty stance. Both vigilantism and the death penalty have significant problems, but in both cases it's not the ideal version that's the issue, it's the implementation.

Vigilantism posits that the "authority" or "system" designed with catching and punishing the "bad guys" fails, either because of ineptitude or corruption (or something similar). IF you accept that this is the case, you are left with two choices: bad guy goes unpunished, or bad guy gets punished by person without the authority to do so. Vigilantism says that the second choice is the ideal one. I... find that I have a hard time seeing anyone saying the first choice is better than the second as even being worthy of having their opinion be listened to, as I find "It's better that evil go unpunished than unauthorized individuals do the punishing" to be a vile and disgusting stance. The problem is that allowing regular people to mete out justice leads, inexorably, to lawless chaos. So it's not so much that vigilantes are bad as it is that if we let vigilantes run wild, human nature and entropy take their course. People tend to go overboard when they don't have pressures (such as laws and their consequences) restraining them. There's a reason we have laws and systems in place to "Catch the bad guys and punish them" rather than just expecting wronged parties and bystanders to take care of things, after all. This is why in the real world, I think it's a good thing we have laws against vigilantism.

As for the death penalty: I find those who consider it barbaric to be perplexing. I don't believe the right to life is untouchable, and I find it confusing that other people do. There are certain actions one can take that forfeit one's rights - this much everyone (well, most people) agrees on; otherwise prisons wouldn't exist. I simply believe that there is no such thing as a right that is exempt from this rule, including the right to life. Punishments should be commensurate to the wrongdoing. Again, the actual problem with the death penalty is the implementation. There's no such thing as a flawless system, and therein lies the real issue. What if someone is wrongly convicted? How can we ensure that the punishment is evenly applied in different cases? The potential problems are endless. On the other hand, there are some pretty clear-cut cases, which is why I'm still pro-death penalty.

[Xyril]

Well, I think the spirit behind vigilantism is the idea of taking matters into your own hands and seeking that which you want, without relying on others to do it for you.

I always thought that the spirit behind vigilantism was a rejection of the idea that justice must be carried out fair, orderly, and dispassionate manner.

I think the term is too broad to judge everything the same way. Strictly speaking, Spider-man is a vigilante, but I would argue he's on the positive end of the spectrum--he's largely motivated by a sense of responsibility, not hatred or revenge, he focuses mostly on criminals who the police are largely disadvantaged against, and most importantly, he hands over the bad guys when he's done, rather than imposing his own form of justice. However, in general stories about this kind of vigilante aren't called vigilante stories because the term has strongly negative connotations.

When you hear the term vigilante movie, you think of movies that are basically revenge porn, where the protagonist acts not necessarily because the police have failed, but rather because he feels entitled to decide and to carry out the punishment himself. Unlike Spider-man, they don't hand the half-conscious criminals over to the cops because the whole point is that the vigilante thinks that a trial, and due process, and whatever sentence the criminal gets isn't harsh enough.

Personally, I think the most compelling stories are the ones that ride the line. Daredevil is selfless, but he's also clearly looking for a target for some serious anger issues. He uses his secret identity to accomplish things that are difficult, if not impossible, under the constraints imposed on the criminal justice system he serves, but he also has limits as to how far he is willing to go to impose his own form of punishment. In so many Takens, Liam Neeson clearly has an axe to grind, but his actions are also clearly necessary: Under the circumstances, police weren't up to the job of daughter-rescuing, and when he himself was grabbed, self-rescue was clearly the most viable option given his particularly set of skills. Sure, he handed out quite a few more death sentences than were strictly necessary for self-defense or information extraction, but as far as we know, once lives were no longer in immediate danger he didn't spend all his time between movies off satisfying his bloodlust.

Revenge is funny. People are so enamored with the idea of revenge that they *fantasize about being wronged* by someone they don't like just to muse on the revenge they would take against them.

I *love* revenge flicks. For regular people, it's the idea of not letting people wrong you. You can't just be a pushover in life. People have to know that there're boundaries and there's a price for crossing you, whatever that might be.

These two paragraphs seem to contradict one another. Fantasizing about being wronged so you can take revenge doesn't sound like "not letting people wrong you." It sounds like someone with evil impulses desperately looking for a socially tolerable way to let them out. As you said yourself, evil people exist, but if you're fantasizing about somebody who has never wronged you doing something that would justify your revenge, I would argue that "somebody" isn't the evil one in that scenario.

[Dr.Samurai]

I always thought that the spirit behind vigilantism was a rejection of the idea that justice must be carried out fair, orderly, and dispassionate manner.

Maybe but, at least for me, I never thought that to be the case. Certainly when the law is enforced it usually takes this form. But I feel like you can have justice outside the law.

When you hear the term vigilante movie, you think of movies that are basically revenge porn, where the protagonist acts not necessarily because the police have failed, but rather because he feels entitled to decide and to carry out the punishment himself. Unlike Spider-man, they don't hand the half-conscious criminals over to the cops because the whole point is that the vigilante thinks that a trial, and due process, and whatever sentence the criminal gets isn't harsh enough.

What would be a good example of this type?

These two paragraphs seem to contradict one another. Fantasizing about being wronged so you can take revenge doesn't sound like "not letting people wrong you." It sounds like someone with evil impulses desperately looking for a socially tolerable way to let them out. As you said yourself, evil people exist, but if you're fantasizing about somebody who has never wronged you doing something that would justify your revenge, I would argue that "somebody" isn't the evil one in that scenario.

The first paragraph is just a general statement about how people think about revenge (the psychology behind wishing someone would wrong you so you can get them back).

The second paragraph is saying that the message in a revenge flick is about not letting people wrong you and/or not being a **** (from the antagonist's POV). But those are my takeaways from the movies. There's probably different messages for different people.

[Xyril]

What would be a good example of this type?

The Deathwishes, obviously. Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave, Savage Streets, and that one with Katie Holmes I think that was solidly mediocre. If you want a slight nudge towards the sympathetic end of the spectrum, Harry Brown, The Brave One, the whole El Mariachi trilogy. Strictly speaking, John Wick, although when I think of this sort of movie I tend to think of movies that revel in the ugly violence inherent in revenge, whereas John Wick goes out of its way to make it sexy and stylish in an unrealistically detached sort of way. Both Boondocks Saints come close to straddling the line because their actions are as much driven by necessity than choice, but it's still about glorifying the actual act of revenge.

[Xyril]

I'm always a little confused by the anti-vigilantism stance. But then, I'm always greatly confused by the anti-death penalty stance.

What's so confusing? There are two broad types of people who oppose the death penalty. The first believes, like you do, that implementation has problems. Unlike you, however, they don't think that it's reasonable to believe that these problems can be solved in the foreseeable future, or they see these problems as an inextricable consequence of implementing the system that cannot be solved. The second group doesn't believe that the government, in our name, should be carrying out a deliberate killing. To them, that's the major moral issue. I do not understand how anyone can find this confusing. You can disagree, sure, but their reasoning is usually clearly articulated to anybody who bothers to listen.

Vigilantism posits that the "authority" or "system" designed with catching and punishing the "bad guys" fails, either because of ineptitude or corruption (or something similar). IF you accept that this is the case, you are left with two choices: bad guy goes unpunished, or bad guy gets punished by person without the authority to do so.

See, you've cleared up your confusion already, you just have to listen to yourself better. IF. You say IF they accept your first assumption. The first problem here is that you're trying to construct some sort of ideal world vigilantism, but it doesn't exist. What does exist, and has existed quite often in our history, is a bunch of people. In fact, I invite you to look up a certain era of American history where certain people felt that the law failed to control certain other people--well, these certain people didn't really feel that those other people really counted as people, but the law imposed upon them disagreed, which was the crux of the problem.

For these folks, their problem with lynching is like my problem with communism--it's a good idea in theory. The problem is, it only works under ideal circumstances in which all people take tremendous pride in their work and work hard regardless of the fact that it has no impact on their material rewards. So in other words, "ideal" is a situation that has thus far been unachievable given human nature. Moreover, whenever people have tried to work towards the ideal--most often, by pretending that the gap between human nature and "the ideal" didn't exist and hoping, essentially, that if you fake it, you make it one day--they invariably made things pretty terrible. And after a while of pondering this good idea in theory, which can only ever work under unachievable conditions, you think to yourself, "Is it really even fair to call it a good idea in theory?"

Vigilantism says that the second choice is the ideal one. I... find that I have a hard time seeing anyone saying the first choice is better than the second as even being worthy of having their opinion be listened to,

Well here's why you're confused: When you enter a conversation with the attitude "I have a hard time seeing you as being worthy of having your opinion listened to," you're probably not actually listening to them explain their position.

If you're willing to set aside your sense of disdain for a moment, I can't really explain their position without knowing it, but I can explain where I can see a potential argument. For many people--particularly people of previously persecuted minority groups--a big part of "justice" means fairness and even-handedness.

With laws--even an imperfect set of laws--you can possibly achieve a system where the law punishes certain actions as crimes, without regard to who you are. True, maybe laws written to be race blind are selectively enforced against certain races, or maybe incompetent cops mean they're not enforced at all, but it's a system where it's possible to takerealistic steps closer to the desired ideal.

In contrast, even in the "ideal" of vigilantism, this sort of even-handed fairness is specifically excluded from the system. An appropriate punishment is decided not by written rules or precedent, but essentially by how angry the victim or his family is about what happened, how much they disliked the criminal even before a crime occurred, and how much the vigilante thinks he can get away with while not losing the community's support. Keep in mind, this the ideal situation you described, where everyone agrees that the laws and government have failed.

[Donnadogsoth]

So my Youtube Adbot decided to bombard me with "Death Wish" ad. The movie about Bruce Willis whose wife apparently got killed and decides to take the law into his own hands to go kill colored criminals.

Am i the only one who.. feels uncomfortable about this whole movie premise? I mean.. this movie seems to hype up the idea that criminals are always just around the corner, and that the police are unwilling to do anything to protect innocent people. Is it meant to be a glorification of suburban white adults to go beat up urban criminals?!

The guys "wants to find the criminals who did that". Geez. What, does he thinks the police just twindle their thumbs and know who commits crime but can't be bothered to do anything?

I know its a remake of a 1971 movie, but I find there is something extremely unbearable about a call to vigilantist violence in our day and age. Especially considering a segment od the population who wants to push the idea of colored people all being criminal thugs and white people being innocent victims.

Well, there is tiny bit of a crime problem in many urban places in that there Murica as I recall. There's also a slight bit of a gun culture and of violent cinema. And, the culture has been festering with a Rock and Roll and Rap "rebel yell" impulse for a while. So, it's not hard to imagine that vigilante fantasies of getting back at murderous criminals might percolate up from time to time.

[Fiery Diamond]

Stuff

Well, to be perfectly honest, the source of my confusion basically boils down to "Some people have different world outlooks than I do, and I find that incomprehensible." So it's not really like explaining the different outlook clears up the confusion. But then, that's my problem, not theirs.

Edit: By different world outlooks, I'm not talking about the final opinion (such as "death penalty is bad") but the ... premises for their mental argument that reaches their conclusion, for lack of a better way of putting it. That's why I made mention of having trouble understanding why certain opinions should be listened too - everyone can have an opinion, but not all opinions are worthy of the same respect. I mean, a statement like "I feel having sex slaves is a good idea" might be an opinion that is pretty much objectively not worth treating with even a modicum of respect. I feel "It's better for bad guys to get away free than for citizens to mete out justice" falls into that category, and I find it very difficult to understand a world outlook that feels differently.

[dps]

I haven't seen the original Death Wish in ages, so I might be mis-remembering this, but my recollection is that it wasn't just a pro-vigilante revenge fantasy--it was more subtle and tragic than that. Basically, the protagonist does actually have a death wish--he doesn't really want to go on after what happens to his family.

By the 3rd movie, all the subtlety was gone and it was basically cartoony. A very violent cartoon, sure, but still a cartoon as opposed to anything even vaguely realistic.

I don't remember the 2nd or 4th movie, and I'm not even sure I ever saw them. Actually, I'm pretty sure I haven't seen Death Wish 4, but I'm not sure about 2.

EDIT: I checked the IMDB to see if it jogged my memory about either 2 or 4 (it didn't), but apparently there was a Death Wish V as well. I didn't know that.

[Xyril]

I mean, a statement like "I feel having sex slaves is a good idea" might be an opinion that is pretty much objectively not worth treating with even a modicum of respect. I feel "It's better for bad guys to get away free than for citizens to mete out justice" falls into that category, and I find it very difficult to understand a world outlook that feels differently.

Have you considered saying, "These are the harms I feel are caused by letting bad guys get away with committing crimes, what about citizens meting out justice causes a harm that you think outweighs that?" and seeing if they actually have anything interesting to say? I get what you're saying earlier about how it's their "premise" for reaching the conclusion that you find lacking, but every example you've given sounds more like judging based on the conclusion.

As for that other bit, I agree that not all opinions deserve the same respect. While I get that it would be impractical to listen to everyone, and that sometimes you have to make snap, somewhat unreasonable judgments without giving someone a fair hearing, to me it gets worrisome when a lot of people start drawing conclusions about a position without first taking the time to listen and then nonetheless continue to argue their belief that the other guy's opinion isn't worth listening. None of those things are things I object to on their own, and I've certainly done all of those things myself. I just think that if you're going to spend time telling folks why some guy's opinion is so wrong it's not even worth listening to, maybe it's worth spending a fraction of that time listening to that opinion first.

[Fiery Diamond]

Have you considered saying, "These are the harms I feel are caused by letting bad guys get away with committing crimes, what about citizens meting out justice causes a harm that you think outweighs that?" and seeing if they actually have anything interesting to say? I get what you're saying earlier about how it's their "premise" for reaching the conclusion that you find lacking, but every example you've given sounds more like judging based on the conclusion.

As for that other bit, I agree that not all opinions deserve the same respect. While I get that it would be impractical to listen to everyone, and that sometimes you have to make snap, somewhat unreasonable judgments without giving someone a fair hearing, to me it gets worrisome when a lot of people start drawing conclusions about a position without first taking the time to listen and then nonetheless continue to argue their belief that the other guy's opinion isn't worth listening. None of those things are things I object to on their own, and I've certainly done all of those things myself. I just think that if you're going to spend time telling folks why some guy's opinion is so wrong it's not even worth listening to, maybe it's worth spending a fraction of that time listening to that opinion first.

Fair enough. I'm not attempting to be a jerk, after all; this is simply an area in which I struggle. Also, I'd like to thank you for being civil and reasonable in response to me rather than getting upset at me. It certainly makes it easier for me to learn from you!

[AMFV]

Well to answer 2d8HP's question and the general question. The reason that revenge flicks work is because we (as outside observers) can recognize that the justice being meted out is accurate and deserved. There is no chance of the revengy person killing the wrong person, outside of a genre deconstruction, and we know that the evil people deserve what they get.

This holds true, even in things like 24. The people who are usually being tortured are typically deserving of torture. Now the efficacy of torture in the real world notwithstanding in the universe of 24, not only is it effective, but we know as an audience that they are deserving of it. Or at least deserving of something. It's a gift that we get from an omnipotent narration. And the fact that we know that allows for a black and white outlook that you wouldn't have in the real world.

In the real world when you torture or kill somebody, unless you are being directly menaced (and often even then) you have a chance to harm somebody who is an innocent or is undeserving. This sucks and it makes the whole thing a great deal more complicated. But Jack Bauer doesn't torture people who are the wrong people (at least not in the bits I'm familiar with) and he doesn't kill people that aren't deserving. Charlie Bronson doesn't really kill the wrong people (although since Deathwish is kind of a deconstruction they do explore the disproportionate nature of his response.)

So it's an area that works in fantasy but not in the real world. There are plenty of conceits like this scatter through fiction. In romance novels guys can exhibit things that would be real world danger signs, and still not be the kind of people that might often exhibit those traits. So for example, in Twilight, you get the positive aspects of obsession (arguably) without the negative aspects of control and power and the later abuse of that power. In Twilight, Edward is a stalker, and would undoubtedly be super controlling, but we know that he actually is doing those things for love, at least notionally, and so it makes it okay, when in the real world it mightn't be.

The same holds true for revenge flicks, and medical flicks. There are plenty of genres where people do things that would be vastly unethical in the real world. House does medical things that would certainly be very wrong, but because of the particular conceits of their genre we enjoy a certainty that we wouldn't otherwise, and that's kind of enjoyable, especially in contrast to the real world, which is greatly more complex.

[Hopeless]

Wasn't the second one where the detective who chased him in the original is killed saving his life?

[Rogar Demonblud]

More like extricating him from a mess he caused, but yes.

[dps]

AMFV largely has the right of it. It's disturbing to see crimes committed but go unpunished, and it's easy to think of vigilantism as a solution to that problem, as a way to punish criminals when the authorities fail to do so. The catch is, any justice system deserving of the name has safeguards in place to minimize the chance of punishing the wrong people, but the vigilante doesn't have that restraint. If you let people take the law into their own hands, they're going to punish the wrong people a lot more often than the justice system does. Plus, for the most part, the only punishments a vigilante can hand out are either death or a beating; a vigilante has no real way to impose fines and it isn't practical for a vigilante to hold a wrongdoer as a prisoner.

[2D8HP]

I suppose part of my problem in enjoying more realistic setting pro-vigilantism stories is that I have in mind The Ox-Bow Incident

novel

and

film

(I watched a lot of black and white movies as a kid), which I encountered before the pro-vigilante justice stuff, as well as the negative portrayals of vigilantes in Steinbeck's novels, if I has seen something like "Taken" before those older works maybe I could enjoy it more.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I wish fiction shaped how I saw vigilantism. I saw it first hand as a kid and absorbed how it is driven almost entirely by bigotry. The core is not "There must be justice", it's "I want an excuse to kill _____."

[Fawkes]

I had a similar reaction as the OP to the trailer. It's very much crafted to prey on a very specific fear - people are coming to YOUR HOUSE to hurt YOUR FAMILY and YOU have to protect them - that drives a lot of toxic behavior in our society. There's an entire industry built around keeping people afraid of their neighbors, and building up this protector fantasy - that you can defend what's yours, as long as you buy the right products/watch the right news/vote for the right people.

[AMFV]

AMFV largely has the right of it. It's disturbing to see crimes committed but go unpunished, and it's easy to think of vigilantism as a solution to that problem, as a way to punish criminals when the authorities fail to do so. The catch is, any justice system deserving of the name has safeguards in place to minimize the chance of punishing the wrong people, but the vigilante doesn't have that restraint. If you let people take the law into their own hands, they're going to punish the wrong people a lot more often than the justice system does. Plus, for the most part, the only punishments a vigilante can hand out are either death or a beating; a vigilante has no real way to impose fines and it isn't practical for a vigilante to hold a wrongdoer as a prisoner.

Well of course, real world vigilantism has those problems. But not film vigilantism. We're seeing vigilantism in a setting where the wrong people don't get punished, unless we are witnessing a deliberate deconstruction of the genre. Which is what makes it so satisfying. Because we see ourselves as the protagonists and we see ourselves in a setting were we can finally make sure people get justice, without any chance of mistakes.

That doesn't mean that people who enjoy Commando, or what-not, really want to go around murdering like 80 people. Or that people who enjoy and watch 24 are pro-torture. It just means that they might enjoy a setting where the negatives of those particular things are greatly reduced. Where those things can work to a positive and righteous end.

I suppose part of my problem in enjoying more realistic setting pro-vigilantism stories is that I have in mind The Ox-Bow Incident

novel

and

film

(I watched a lot of black and white movies as a kid), which I encountered before the pro-vigilante justice stuff, as well as the negative portrayals of vigilantes in Steinbeck's novels, if I has seen something like "Taken" before those older works maybe I could enjoy it more.

That's very possible, although I think the trick is to learn to separate out the rules of what works in one type of fictional setting from another fictional setting. In a vigilante work, the rules are profoundly different than they are in the "Ox Bow Incident" or in Steinbeck. I have plenty of issues with Steinbeck actually, he's probably my most hated writer.

I wish fiction shaped how I saw vigilantism. I saw it first hand as a kid and absorbed how it is driven almost entirely by bigotry. The core is not "There must be justice", it's "I want an excuse to kill _____."

You are largely, mistaken. There certainly are cases where this is true, but you're ascribing motivations to other individuals and then grossly simplifying those motivations to something negative.

I had a similar reaction as the OP to the trailer. It's very much crafted to prey on a very specific fear - people are coming to YOUR HOUSE to hurt YOUR FAMILY and YOU have to protect them - that drives a lot of toxic behavior in our society. There's an entire industry built around keeping people afraid of their neighbors, and building up this protector fantasy - that you can defend what's yours, as long as you buy the right products/watch the right news/vote for the right people.

As somebody who likes these films, I'm going to say that you also are wrong. It's not about the protector fantasy, this is about the justice fantasy. It's a different issue entirely. Horror films prey on the protector fear. Particularly home invasion films. In these films the protector has already failed. So it's not about protection, it's about justice, and because we are privy to all information we know that the end is actually justice, not just notionally just. It's a kind of justice that cannot exist in the real world, and that's what makes it so satisfying.