It is undoubtedly a black ending. Looking back, this well-made but dull suspense crime film is indeed worthy of being discovered by a lagging perspective. (Of course, this opportunity is the DVD version of the film recently released by Standards.)
First, the plot is roughly rationalized, and the details may be inaccurate: The
Jewish policeman Bob was ordered to investigate the shooting of an old Jewish woman in a shop in a block, but because The other major case that was being taken over before took no notice of this. The old woman's wealthy descendants believed that she was threatened with life because of her Jewish identity and requested protection. Bob, who was a little disgusted at first, found that there was something wrong with it and began a serious investigation. In the shop of the old woman, he found a gun record, which also presumed the extraordinary identity of the Jewish organization when the victim was young. The clues led him to the underground Jewish organization named 212. The other party confirmed his guess and asked for a record that was not conducive to the neo-Nazi organization (they believed that the evidence that the latter wanted to recover was caused by the old woman. The reason for the killing.), and Bob refuses as a policeman. Therefore, Bob, who was hostile by his "comrades", has now awakened his Jewish identity and sought to "join" the young woman he had seen in the old woman's house. To prove his sincerity, Bob helped the organization blow up a neo-Nazi stronghold, but he did not expect that he would be threatened to surrender his gun records. Desperate, he hurriedly remembered and rushed to the scene of another assault, and found that his partner had been shot and killed by the suspect. In despair, he went to confront the suspect and was shot twice. Bob, who returned to the police station, learned that he had been dismissed, and the case of the old woman had been solved—just a robbery by two black children.
There are no lack of dull films, but there are also scenes worth concentrating on. There was a chasing shadow between the light and the dark on the roof, the blunt appearance of the swastika flag and anti-Semitic signs in the neo-Nazi stronghold, and the desolate killing of abandoned pavilions.
In recent years, we have seen many crime-themed movies like this: The real focus of the story is not the unresolved suspects, but the psychological process of the investigators of the case. The film was shot in the early 1990s, and the vintage is relatively early, and the tone is dark and cold, but there is no fierce confrontation. What is different is the unique identity background of the protagonist, and the film seems to slightly reflect the Jewish survival pressure in contemporary American society. For me, the protagonist’s transformation is quite abrupt (of course, I can hardly understand the racial and identity pressure factors in it), but the screenwriter’s plot setting for this is still relatively detailed. (Director and screenwriter David Mamet has directed very few works since 1987, but he has a rich resume as a screenwriter.)
The plots set in the film can be seen as a turning point. The granddaughter of the old woman showed anger after Bob's disrespectful remarks: "Do you think your identity is so shameful?" Bob immediately said guiltily that he would find out the real culprit. The disdain of the Jewish scholar who came across in the library: "You said you are a Jew, but you don't understand Hebrew." This has caused Bob to question himself. Facing the leader of the 212 organization, Bob clearly answered that he was a Jew and was willing to make every effort to cooperate with his compatriots. (Of course, with the justice of the police, he rejected the request for evidence, but then the practice of dropping bombs at his orders was more extreme and difficult to recover.)
In addition, the film has no shortage of cleverly setting Bob into the police world as a negotiator. This point was revealed in the plot of negotiation and persuasion with the mother of the suspect in another case. This identity also paved the way for his later confession to women: He believes that his superiors appointed him as a negotiator because he understood the psychology of those extremists, and undoubtedly put a difference between the two. No. Here, Bob’s deep inferiority and depression as a Jew can be seen.
From disdain and even hostility towards the so-called Jews’ life safety, to perplexingly chasing clues of “anti-Semitism”, then unwilling to be hostile and betrayed by fellow citizens, and finally to the complete recovery of self-identity. This is what I understand, the psychological process of the protagonist.
If you want to choose a node in this process, I think it is this scene: Bob is thrown out of the door because he refuses to hand over the evidence. The young man who closed the door says: "You don't have to come to us again, you won't have the next chance." The door of the organization was closed again, and the eyes were completely dark.
He thought to himself, this time he must never become an outsider again.
It is worth mentioning that the film also sets a character unrelated to the main plot-a desperate man captured by the police station who killed his wife and children and attempted to kill himself with Bob's gun.
The detail about the loosening of Bob's holster by the man who snatched his gun led to two important episodes afterwards: Bob handed the note with clues to the Jewish old man in the repair shop on the grounds of repairing the snatch. The key clue of GROFAZ came out of his mouth. (The last scene of the film tells us that the torn paper actually lacks the letter T. Grofazt is just the name of the pigeon food that Bob found on the roof of the old woman’s house, but it does not mean Hitler’s Jewish code word.) The other scene is yes. In the final confrontation between Bob and the black suspect, at that moment did he realize that due to the accident with the holster, the gun had disappeared long ago.
In the last scene, Bob, who learned the truth of the case, sat down in despair. At this time, the man who had been formally arrested was taken by him and gave a meaningful look-
so the audience and Bob himself thought of the man. I have said: I will show you evil.
So there is a sense of fate. The other two plots that
came to mind are also coincidental, that is- Bob accidentally stepped on the ladder in the old woman's shop and found the box containing important evidence.
In the library, with the gap between a book at that moment, he heard the name 212 in the conversation between the two.
So let's go back to the beginning, if it weren't for a sudden brake, Bob would never take over the old woman's case. Perhaps in the future, there is no need to mention the "real" identity that I tried to hide.
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