01
It is estimated that many boys yearn for an affair in their lifetime: at a suitable time and place, they meet a young woman with good looks, body and temperament, they don’t ask each other where they come from, they talk and have fun, spend a good night together, and then forget about each other. in the rivers and lakes.
Aventure satisfies men's physical and psychological fantasy of the opposite sex, and shrewd businessmen use this as a gimmick to attract attention, which has been tried and tested. That's why Lijiang, Dali, Phoenix and other ancient towns are all known as "Aventure" cities, and all kinds of social software don't hesitate to use the stigma of "Avenger Artifacts" to increase their attention.
I have to admit that I also noticed the American drama "Sin Night Run" because I saw the word "Aventure" in the public account of the movie.
This is a crime drama. The protagonist Naz is a Muslim, a descendant of Pakistani immigrants. He stole his father's taxi to go to a party. He accidentally took a beautiful girl. The two went to the beach, crossed the road, and went home together. In the girl's home, after smoking drugs, she rolls the sheets. The next day, the girl was found naked on the bed.
A bloody case caused by an affair, and all kinds of evidence investigated by the police point the suspect to Natsu with a Middle Eastern face. The subsequent plot revolves around whether Natsu is guilty or not. The prosecution and the defense each collect evidence. On the surface, they are fighting for justice, but in fact they are scheming.
I'm not too keen on crime-themed American dramas. Among the American dramas I have watched, only "Breaking Bad" can be regarded as a crime drama, and I only watched it when I heard that its series was over and received rave reviews. Despite the recommendation of the official account, I still lack enough motivation to watch "Sin Night Run".
Until Gao Xiaosong also recommended this drama on his talk show, as a short, big, and tight-headed fan, the recommendation of idols cannot be ignored.
02
The first season of "Running in the Night of Sin" has a total of eight episodes and about 500 minutes. It took two weeks to watch it, which is not smooth.
The storyline progresses slowly along three lines. First, the police and the prosecution, relying on the fingerprints, murder weapon and eyewitnesses at the scene, find Natsu guilty; second, the defense, in the case of unfavorable evidence, try to make an innocence for Natsu. The third is Natsu, who is awaiting trial in prison, learns to survive the fittest, and gradually transforms into blackness.
The three lines intersected and influenced each other, and finally converged at the trial scene. The tit-for-tat and well-founded statements of the lawyers of the prosecution and defense made people wonder what happened to Natsu's fate.
The experience of watching the drama is just like the progress of the story, and it started to follow the steps step by step, and it was flat; after watching the first episode for three days, I almost wanted to give up the drama. In the middle section, with the investigation and restoration of the details of the case by the lawyers of the prosecution and the defense, they realized the clues buried in the first two episodes, and the viewing of the drama gradually became better. In the final two episodes of the trial, the conflict of the plot reached a climax, which made people addicted to it.
The story of "Sin Night Run" takes place in New York in the post-9/11 era, where New Yorkers are still traumatized and still have hostility and prejudice against Muslims in the Middle East. When the case of a Muslim college student brutally raped and murdered a white woman was exposed, not only did the case itself become the focus of social and media attention, but it also aggravated the society's hatred of Muslims.
Natsu has a cute face and is a promising college student. He even seems cowardly when communicating with his classmates, making it difficult to connect with the murderer. But he is a Muslim who believes in Islam, and there are extreme elements in Islamic fundamentalism, and there may be violent tendencies ambush under the seemingly weak appearance of Muslims.
The bottom-level lawyer Stone chose to believe that Natsu was innocent. Even if he initially contacted Natsu for the purpose of gaining a vote, even if the dark history against Natsu was frequently revealed later, it did not shake his judgment. .
Detective Dennis, after only a superficial investigation, identified Natsu as the murderer and persuaded him to take the initiative to confess in order to reduce his criminal responsibility. He had preconceived suspicions, and the evidence found was only to confirm his judgment.
Both types of predictions based on personal experience can be viewed as stereotypes when the truth is unknown.
03
When judicial justice encounters racism, will legal justice be sidelined because of prejudice?
For this question, "Running on a Night of Sin" borrows the clue from Stone's mouth:
"The truth can go to hell! Because it can't help you at all."
"They tell their stories, we tell our stories, and the jury decides which is their favorite."
The truth doesn't matter. It's important to get the majority of the jury member to move the story in his own defense.
The justice and equality of the law is just an ideal. The main body of justice is people. If the truth is difficult to prove and the purpose of winning the case is to be achieved, the influence of people's emotions and preferences on the judgment result cannot be ignored.
John, a low-level lawyer who often provides legal services to addicts and prostitutes under the slogan "Before Freedom, Takes Nothing", should deeply understand the loopholes and drawbacks of the American judicial system. That's how he instigated the ignorant Natsu.
But if the audience really thinks that they can get away with the court by just relying on falsehoods, they are simply treating the American judicial system as a child's play, and underestimating the depth of the play "Run of Sin".
In fact, the stories told by both the prosecution and the defense were based on clear facts, each adding purpose-driven speculation to try to convince the jury.
The defense claimed that Natsu was excellent in character and learning, while the prosecution brought out Natsu’s dark history of fighting at school and selling illegal drugs; the prosecution claimed that the evidence at the scene was conclusive, and the defense questioned that Detective Dennis took the asthma inhaler from the crime scene Taking it and handing it to Natsu is not in compliance with the rules.
It can be said that "you have Zhang Liang's plan, and I have a ladder to climb over the wall". With their continuous efforts, the scene of the case and the details behind it are constantly being excavated, and the truth seems to be coming out.
However, until the end of the play, the audience still did not know who the real culprit was.
Obviously the intention of the screenwriter is not to reveal the truth, but to use the advancement of the case to show the struggle and sinking of human nature, the ills and helplessness of the judiciary under the background of racism.
Almost every case-related character in the play shows their complexity, which is hard to define as good or bad. If you only start from their performance, and lay a solid label for the role, you will definitely be beaten in the face.
"There are no heroes and no villains here. You can see everyone's psychoanalysis." - John Turturro, the actor who played Stone's lawyer, commented on the play.
The shrewd and seasoned detective Dennis is the main judge of the identity of Natsu's suspect. After realizing his flaws in the investigation, he re-checked it and found evidence in his favor. It is a correction of prejudice.
The old and vicious prosecution lawyer Helen failed to get Natsu to plead guilty, so she communicated with the coroner in advance and asked him to make perjury against Natsu at the trial. Turn, after a moment of silence, gave up the appeal. That moment is when conscience prevails over prejudice.
Kapoor, a young Indian-American female lawyer, believed that Naz, in the process of defending Naz, gradually developed a good impression of Naz, and couldn't help kissing during the meeting in prison, and even used his body to transport drugs for Naz. This unprofessional relationship disqualified her from defending and losing her job was the price of prejudice.
The picture of "Running in the Night of Sin" is gloomy and cold, which gives the audience a sense of admiration, which well sets off the evolution and entanglement of the characters in the play. Attorneys Natsu and Stone, who played the most important roles, were impressive.
04
Just like there are cancer cells in everyone, maybe everyone also has the seeds of evil in their hearts, but usually under the constraints of laws and morals, there is no suitable soil for them to grow.
Although Natsu is a native American, his skin color and creed are destined to be discriminated against and bullied. On weekdays, he was cautious and cautious, but he was suddenly recognized as a murder suspect.
Awaiting trial, Natsu was thrown into New York's Rikers Island Prison, which is notorious for its frequent violence and is listed as one of the ten most brutal prisons in the world.
With "Bambi-like clear eyes", Natsu has become the most unusual existence in the prison. As soon as he entered the prison, he attracted the attention of the prison keeper Fret.
Fret wanted Natsu to be his younger brother. At this moment, Natsu believed that he could be cleared of the crime and was unwilling to obey. When he came back, he found that his bed had been set on fire, and the crowd was full of malice. After that, Natsu continued to encounter threats and threats in prison. attack.
Prisons are a world of power. Natsu, who gradually understood the rules of survival, began to exercise, shaved his head, and changed his previous image of "weak chicken"; he took refuge in Fret, transported drugs, abused others, assisted in killing, and changed from being bullied to being an aggressor. , swaggering in the prison, no one dares to provoke.
The shift is surprising, but reasonable.
In fact, when Natsu chose "Sinbad" as his code name, engraved "Sin" in one hand and "bad" in the other, the seed of sin had already sprouted and thrived. .
Choose sin just to survive? Or to fight that innate prejudice?
Seeing this, I believe that all viewers who think that Natsu is innocent will shake their judgments.
When Natsu was released from prison, Fred gave him a copy of "The Call of the Wild", which seemed to imply that Natsu had regained his true nature. At the door, only his father who always believed in him greeted him, and the two embraced each other silently.
After all this, the estrangement between Natsu and his mother due to suspicion could not be eliminated, and the cold eyes were enough to make the old classmate panic. Going back to the beach where I had been with the girl, taking a sip of heroin, I saw the girl smiling again in a trance.
The seemingly pure Muslim youth no longer exists. As a minority who has been humiliated and damaged, perhaps this is the fate they cannot get rid of.
05
Gray beard and hair, walking crooked; large trench coat, open-toed sandals. Carry a pair of chopsticks with you, and often take it out to poke the itchy athlete's foot, hand out business cards to everyone, and say a self-promotional slogan.
It's hard to associate such a raunchy, obnoxious image with a lawyer.
People are divided into three, six and nine, and wood is divided into rosewood and rosewood. In the elite class of lawyers, Stone must be the least popular, so his clients are all marginalized people in society, such as thieves and prostitutes.
And he himself has always been disliked in various ways. People in the judicial system commented that he was a "reptile" in the industry; his family was divorced, and his dark-skinned son was reluctant to admit that he was a father in front of his classmates; acquaintances often joked about his athlete's foot, and passengers on the subway were afraid of his athlete's foot infection. , for fear of avoiding him; suffering from sexual dysfunction, even prostitutes look down on him.
Over time, Stone no longer takes other people's dislikes seriously and goes his own way.
Stone is a little guy, and everyone thinks he got into Natsu's case to make a fortune. Stone did exactly that. First, he took the trouble to negotiate the service fee with Natsu's parents. After the defense qualification was replaced by Kapoor, he continued to negotiate with Kapoor on the cost of participating in the case investigation.
After all, the 30,000 yuan service fee is worth his service to 120 thieves and prostitutes.
But all this is just an appearance.
Even someone like Stone, who has always been underestimated, will strive for the opportunity to change and prove himself.
Trying to treat athlete's foot, when the athlete's foot was controlled by Chinese medicine, Stone carefully put on his leather shoes, put on a suit, and twisted his ankle excitedly like a child, trying to attract attention, but unfortunately no one cared.
Witnesses and contacts of the girl, who did everything possible to investigate the case, did not hesitate to take risks to explore the truth of the case, and finally found a suspect with more motives. In the end, he gave a generous speech under the most pressure, successfully moved the jury members, and staged the highest moment of his lawyer career.
Stone's image in the play remains unchanged
No matter how humble it was, in the case of Natsu, Stone proved that he was a true professional lawyer.
But the truth of life is that it will not easily change its orbit just because of a little change in you. Athlete's foot still haunts Stone; commission calls come in mostly $250 cases, which Stone does best.
06
Finally, one more interesting detail.
Whether the charges against Naz's homicide are convicted depends on the jury's opinion. Six to six, the 12 jury members voted evenly for and against, indicating that the jury members' verdict has a major disagreement, either the accusation is not established, or another jury retrial.
Naz was acquitted after the prosecution dropped the case.
This is the embodiment of the principle of "suspicious guilt never" in the judicial system.
I couldn't help but think of the "Nie Shubin" case that attracted much attention some time ago.
I hope there will be no more shadows under the sunshine of justice.
View more about The Night Of reviews
