BaconBitsServerAge
CONTAINS SPOILERS/10 3 months ago
Overall, I have to say I had a good time watching this movie, but narratively, there seemed to be a lot that never really seems to pan out.
After the resolution and epilogue, all I could focus on was the fact that the main characters are first-degree murderers who learn no moral lesson at all and face no consequences for their actions. Based on the thesis about social constructionism given at the beginning, that people become the people they pretend to be, then the main character was a good man turned into a murderer by the love for and from a sociopathic woman.
Perhaps if they'd done more to set up Madison's husband as actually abusive and threatening to escalate the violence, the audience would be shown that he deserved to die. They did set up Jasper as a bad cop, and thus we are invited feel better about Gary murdering him to save his murderer girlfriend at the end. But no, the movie never show us Madison's husband as doing anything except being upset and antagonistic outside the nightclub; we are only to believe Madison's solicitation for his murder from Gary is because he is _really a bad guy_ since _she said_ he was. It is as though the movie is saying he deserved it simply because she wanted him murdered, and since she's a beautiful woman, she can't be wrong or held responsible the same way the other, ugly people who want Gary to murder people in their lives had to be.
As the turn happens, Gary tells Madison that her ex-husband tried to solicit him to kill her, and therefore she goes and shoots him in the throat. **That's pre-meditated murder in the first degree--not in self-defense at all, straight up murder.** Although he did want to hire the hitman AFTER THE NIGHTCLUB incident, he was acting impulsively out of anger and emotion. Madison, on the other hand, had been planning to and calculating his death and had made up her mind when she tried to hire a hitman to murder her husband rather than leaving him. At her initial meeting with Gary the hitman, she pretends to be demure and intimidated, but the moment she starts eating his food, narratively, means she has a secret and she has the power in the scene because of it. Despite Gary feeling in control of the meeting, before the end, she had already put him on the defensive, flirted with him, and aroused his interest in her well-being. Even after he thinks he talked her out of it, she seems to walk away still wanting her husband murdered and now is also sexually excited by the sexy killer. The very act of him trying to change her mind was proof she'd already started to manipulate him.
Again, let me reiterate that I like it as I was watching it, so it wasn't until the end that I realized that the narrative structure is broken and creates an end wherein Madison, the sociopathic murderer who not only has absolutely no moral arc and learns no lessons, is actually rewarded for her actions by Gary choosing to be a first-degree murderer like her. Instead of justice, they are both rewarded with a good life with children and no murder charges.
So if you like stories about sociopathic women who manipulate good men who all murder people without moral hang-ups and with absolutely no negative consequences, then you'll love this one.