Death Wish

 

     A half a century ago, on July 24, 1974, a film debuted that changed the film industry forever. It was Death Wish, based on the 1972 Brian Garfield novel, and starred Charles Bronson. It would go on to spawn four sequels and a 2018 remake with Bruce Willis.

     But long before the first sequel would hit theaters eight years later, the first film had stated its case.

     One could persuasively make a case that the first Death Wish was a right wing wet dream: It featured a man named Paul Kersey, a successful architect and family man, who had been wronged by society and failed by the system. Then he goes out and starts killing after his wife is killed and his daughter raped and put into a catatonic state.

     By example and effective storytelling, the filmmakers asked a silent but big question: Was Paul Kersey justified in going on a killing spree and reducing the criminal element in New York City? "What would you do?" it seemed to ask.

     It feeds into the perennial extreme right wing fantasy of taking out your enemies with impunity, without any comeuppance from the system that ultimately failed Kersey. He was shrewdly made a sympathetic character who'd lost everything near and dear to him through no fault of his own. Death Wish inspired a whole subgenre of so-called "revenge films". Ms 45 in 1981 and, just two years after Death Wish, Lipstick. 2019's Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix, can accurately be classified as, at least partly, a revenge film.

     Well, at 6:46 this morning in midtown Manhattan, a man found his inner Paul Kersey and gunned down UnitedHealth's CEO, Brian Thompson, in cold blood. Thompson was already vilified, as are all health care CEOs, of cold-bloodedly kicking people off their health care plans. So it's only poetic justice that he was just as casually taken off this planet by someone who held his life in as much contempt.

     As we know nothing about the shooter except a few inconclusive videos and screengrabs, we don't know what motivated him. But considering Thompson's line of work and how he'd made his tens of millions, we can only speculate.

     The word is filled with victims, innocent victims, people who never deserve whatever cruel fate befalls them. Your mortgage doubles suddenly and you immediately find yourself underwater. Your employer decides to outsource your job. Or you get thrown off your healthcare plan because your lost your job or because of "pre-existing conditions".

     What would you do?

     Arthur Fleck, aka Joker, in a pre-Batman Gotham City, becomes the hero. Paul Kersey, on a somewhat smaller scale, also becomes the hero, being simply dubbed "the Vigilante." Crime goes down. He has public support that almost reaches the level of cult status, a movement.

     And the guy who shot Thompson, in a scene straight out of a Batman movie, did so with calmness. After he shot Thompson, he slowly turned away, jogged across the street then got away on a bicycle. Yes, a bicycle. Which makes a lot of sense. How do you trace a bicycle, a two-wheeled vehicle with no license plate, in a city with countless millions of them?

     And while it's obvious this guy was no professional (at some point, he has trouble chambering a round into his semiauto), he knew where and when Thompson was going to be. All he had to do was wait at a nearby Starbucks. How did he come by that intelligence? Well, MAGA trolls have long since shown us they can find and release your personal information with just a few deft keystrokes.

     But it was most certainly a targeted hit. There was a witness whom the gunman had passed and he was able to run away unharmed.

     Was this man wronged by Thompson and his huge health care corporation? Was someone in his family wronged?

     It's easy, very seductive, in fact, to read too much into this on account of how little information we have. It's all too easy to jump to conclusions and see this as an example of the little man turning the tables and sticking it to the big guy for a change. This may be just a one-off.

     Or it may be the start of a series of killings. We'll have to wait and see.

     But one thing is for certain- For now, he got away with it, just as Thompson thought he had with his predatory and ruinous policies that cost countless vulnerable people their health care. Brian Thompson was no good guy but neither is the man who'd shot him. Murdering people is no way to redress your grievances no matter how few alternative options the system gives you.

     But for now, this guy is a hero to many. And, just as possession is nine tenths of the law, perception is nine tenths of reality. The bad guy finally got a fat stake through his black heart. I'm seeing little, if any, sympathy for Brian Thompson on social media.

     The ultimate irony is in the lead image above. Less than three hours after Thompson's murder, UnitedHealth's stock price shot up (no pun intended) by nearly 2.5%, which is the most American thing ever.