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On Crime In Films: It Does Look Mostly Ridiculous.

Anton Goryunov: What is this fascination that people have with crime in films and on television? What is so exciting about watching endless thrillers that have roughly the same set up: some actors pretend to be bank robbers, thieves, murderers, drug dealers, pimps and hookers and others pretend to be cops, and both categories don’t really look very convincing. Don’t we have enough scumbags in real life without spending hours watching more of them on screen?

Thrillers have become so full of clichés that it is possible now to guess not only what is going to happen in most of them but even what the main characters are going to say, at one point or another. In my younger days, when I was still watching all that trash religiously, the thing that annoyed me most was when short actors were playing the roles of tough guys. Honestly, how can you treat somebody seriously when he is about 5″2? Martin Scorsese’s gangster flicks were all like that. Joe Pesci a violent thug who terrorises people much taller than him? Come on, get real.

I find it strange that so many people come home every day and watch endless TV crime series, as if it is the most exciting subject in the world. And I find it even more bizarre when some actually take the trouble of going to the cinema, pay extortionate prices for their tickets and kill two and a half and even three hours, watching some rubbish about some lowlifes robbing banks and killing people, and cops chasing them. And then they come home and what do they do? They switch on the box and get another helping of the same stuff all over again: short men pretending to be cops or gangsters, throwing their weight around and talking tough and killing people indiscriminately.

Endless and endless crime thrillers besiege us. I don’t know if anyone bothered to research the subject more closely, but I guess that films about crime would probably make up about 70 per cent of all the output, most of them with two-dimensional cops and robbers, whacking dozens of people and in between the shootings having relationship problems and family difficulties.

I especially object to this stupid concept of: ‘Yes, violent criminals are people too and they have feelings, just like the rest of us.’ What f..king feelings? They are violent thugs and murderers who have crossed the line. They have no feelings. They will sell their mother for a dollar, or for whatever other currency that they operate with. They are lowlifes and scum.

I still remember that bizarre film, Heat, with Al Pacino and Robert Deniro, playing two opposites, a cop and a violent bank robber. The film was supposed to show the two men doing their respective jobs, so to speak, and having personal problems at home. So in between violent bank robberies we would see Deniro sorting out his relationship with his woman, who is supposedly so dumb that she has no idea that her ‘kitten’ is robbing banks on weekdays, along with a bunch of other lowlifes, who also have feelings and difficult relationships in between numerous homicides.

That is how crime is promoted and glamorised in films, by the way. By showing ruthless thugs as some family men, who have the same problems at home like all other people. That was why the Sopranos was such a bad idea. That fat bastard Tony, a murderer and racketeer, was presented as a family man with unresolved issues. It was a bad, bad idea. Especially as there are people out there who take this shit very seriously.

Crime thrillers generally have become filled with senseless violence. Hundreds of people get wacked, with total indifference demonstrated by both the good and the bad guys, and that is what makes this violence on screen so appalling – it’s not real, it makes no sense and it looks more like a game. That is why so many children get hooked on it. Not to mention some grown-ups, who get stupid ideas and copy the crimes committed on screen. I know this because Russian cops have told me about dozens of copycat murders taking place every year. A friend of mine was tortured and then murdered some years ago, 40 minutes after I had spoken to him over the phone, in the same way as that cop was tortured and killed in Tarantino’s abysmal film, Reservoir Dogs.

And another thing that I find absolutely amazing about thrillers is how the cops in them always seem to be leading a life of luxury and excess. They drive fancy cars, hang out in expensive restaurants and night clubs and pay their informers a lot of money to find out things. Cool dudes with no fear and total dedication to their highly paid jobs.

How stupid can all this be? The film directors, who make all this rubbish, should get some other day job. They probably have never seen a real life criminal in their lives. How do they know what crime is all about?

So I repeat my question once again: what is this fascination with watching crime thrillers? Don’t people have anything else to do?

– End –

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