When the Bad Guy Wins

Creative Forums Art, Music, and Entertainment
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I didn’t know where to put this topic, so I just put it here.

EVERY POST IN THIS TOPIC IS LIKELY TO CONTAIN SPOILERS

Anyway, I wanted to talk about really good movies where the bad guy wins, I saw the topic on some news thing, but did not recognize the majority of the movies, so I wanted to see what you guys think. For the time being, I will contribute two such movies now and maybe more later:

1.) The Devil’s Advocate

Satan is the ultimate bad guy, I mean, he is the Prince of Evil, am I right, ladies?

Anyway, just when you thought he had lost and it was safe to let the kids out, when Keanu Reeves made the right decision and refused to represent his client; he agrees to an interview with a friend of is. A few seconds later, the friend materialized into Satan (Al Pacino) and said something to the effect of Vanity being his favorite sin. Satan went through an elaborate (exceptionally elaborate) and well-orchestrated plan to get his son (Reeves) to join him, but ultimately failed to seduce him with the money, power and glory he offered. In the end, Reeves is apparently seduced by an intangible temptress, vanity.

2.) Lord of War

Okay, so Yuri Orlov (Nicholas Cage) lost his brother by way of death, his wife and kids by way of them leaving him, and his parents by way of being disowned, but he escaped imprisonment and is still running small arms and planes to underprivileged countries to this day. He cheated on his wife at least three times during the course of the movie, anyway, although I think losing his kid came as a blow. He lost his Uncle too, he witnessed the death of his brother (glorified suicide to temporarily save others) and his Uncle (car bomb).

So maybe Yuri Orlov didn’t win in every sense of the world, but people rarely do. The fact remains that he escaped jail and is still filthy rich. It’s pretty strange to find yourself cheering for the bad guy, but that’s what happens when you watch this movie.

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One of my all time favorites. Vanity is not only the devil’s favorite sin, the movie made me realize that it’s the ONLY sin.

As for Reeve’s character, he did the right thing, probably costing him his right to practice law. So how does it fit that he’d turn right around and succumb to that vanity? Vanity is only a sin after all, when it causes you to place your rights above those of others.

Perhaps cheering for the gray guy fits better. He’s an unrepentant capitalist doing what he’s naturally gifted at doing. Capitalism and free markets are, for the most part amoral. They can’t judge the fine points of the morality of the entity they sell their weapons too. They don’t have the resources, and if they did, they wouldn’t have the time. In any case, judging that morality is up to the subjects of the governments that succumb to the corrupt graft paid to them by such gun runners. As for being rewarded or punished in this world for one’s sins or good accomplishments, God doesn’t do that, otherwise He’d be interfering with our free will.

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He will acquire fame, fame will breed more fame which will breed wealth etc…

I think the movie begged for a sequel, apparently some disagreed, but it is apparent that Pacino at least thinks he has won.

He does “Judge the fine points of the morality of the entity,” he is selling weapons to when it comes to Baptiste, he all but freely admits that he thinks Baptiste is a piece of shit, but indicates a quiet admiration for him at the same time. He also states towards the end of the movie when his brother and Baptiste’s son are killed:

“We saw something in each other neither one of us liked, or maybe we were just looking in the mirror.”

Since Baptiste is almost indisputably evil, the above statement attests to the evilness (bad) of Yuri Orlov, self-admitted, by the way.

Later on the movie, he also says,

“They say evil prevails when good men fail to act, what they should say is, ‘evil prevails.’”

In the end Yuri Orlov prevails by avoiding prison.

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Fame, money, even power aren’t inherently the roots of evil. It all depends on the integrity of those who possess them.

He lost the battle, but the war between integrity and temptation continues until we pass on. Ergo the “devil” always has hope.

I don’t remember him calling himself evil. But if he did, well, we are our own judges in the end. He’s sort of like Rambo, condemned to be good at what they do while having at live with the self-recrimination for the violence it entails. But yeah, I’d have to agree that selling guns to an evil entity would pretty much condemn him in my book.

Yes, he prevailed in this case due to the corrupt system, but his opinion that evil (always) prevails I believe is merely his opinion, and wrong. No Country for Old Men also dealt with this theme, but there, the case for good (old men) always loosing to evil was made by the author instead of the character–a critical difference to which I strongly object.

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He lacked integrity, I will admit that he made a valiant effort at the end, twice, but ultimately his vanity got the best of him.

He did lose the battle, but the end of the movie indicates that a new battle has begun, a re-match, if you will.

He doesn’t call himself evil, he states that he and Baptiste were looking in the mirror and calls Baptiste evil, so the implication that he knows himself to be evil is there.

Anyway, I am all for continuing the conversation regarding these two movies, but do you also have any movies you’d like to add?

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Well, of course there’s No Country for Old Men, which I mentioned. But that isn’t really the issue here, I don’t think, because even though evil always wins, we still understand that it’s unquestionably evil. The anti-hero, one who ingratiates himself to us by overriding his “baddness” with an endearing quality or two, is more interesting.

A couple of characters, Ben Wade & Charlie Prince, in 3:10 to Yuma would fit. Wade for his twisted sense of honor, and Prince for his extreme loyalty.

And then there’s Hal in 2001 who develops sentience, which leads us identify with him (it?), only for him to succumb to his contradictory programming that we, driven by a pathological need for secrecy, created him with.