I'll give it a seven. Brody and Whitaker are both good. The movie is somewhat low budget and the script isn't the best, but the themes and the character analysis is actually pretty good. I pondered the themes throughout multiple viewings. You can tell both actors put work into their roles and wanted it to be a success. I don't know why people are complaining, because compared to 90% of what else is on t.v. this is way better.
As an aside, the progression of the protagonists can be seen as sort of a self character study for the viewer. You get to see what types of personalities are more power hungry and apt to infringe on other people's lives, what types of people stand up for goodness, and the others that fall in between.
Brody's character is a peace activist and also an underachiever, perhaps the script writers wanted to show that these types of people are usually oppressed even though they feel the occasional desire to protest. Over the course of the film his character's psyche is peeled back like an onion to reveal his true underlying self; a fighter for good. Brody's character doesn't have it in him to oppress, and it takes being put into an ultimate situation like this, where his sense of safe civilly adhering human is completely stripped away. He has nothing left to do but fully be the 'savior' type that his personality type is at its core. This may sound stupid, but I sense a unicorn-ness about Brody's character. The ultimate good versus evil. Which can be read between the lines of this movie.
Whitaker's persona is the opposite of light and good, it is dark and oppressed and thus seeks to oppress. He has become what he was raised from. Backstory vignettes show how his mother was domineering and he still lives with her at age 41. He begins the story as meek and polite and god fearing, but further into the story you see that those were just covers for his true quiet desperation. And once he is placed in a position of power he gets to embody all of that pain that made him feel powerless throughout his life. Like a tortured animal that wants to see his trauma wrought upon another, in a very sociopathic way, his character can't live without experiencing that. It is unfortunate, but as is seen in this movie, that is why there are roles in society for people brought up like this; prison guard.
By the end of the movie, and after empathizing with the characters, you see that humans are just the products of their environments. I would say it is good versus evil, but Whitaker's character is too complex to fully write off as true evil, he is a naive human grown in an unideal home, and I feel bad for him. Brody's character, though more enjoyable to watch and the 'hero' of the story, is somewhat less fulfilling, because he has obviously been raised into a life that has given him freedom and light, he is sort of the fool, as he is in most of his films, and so in a broader sense is regarded with less depth. But as is seen in the last bus scene, it's all about choice, and in the end everybody has one. And Whitaker's character chooses to be dark and Brody's to be light.
As an aside, the progression of the protagonists can be seen as sort of a self character study for the viewer. You get to see what types of personalities are more power hungry and apt to infringe on other people's lives, what types of people stand up for goodness, and the others that fall in between.
Brody's character is a peace activist and also an underachiever, perhaps the script writers wanted to show that these types of people are usually oppressed even though they feel the occasional desire to protest. Over the course of the film his character's psyche is peeled back like an onion to reveal his true underlying self; a fighter for good. Brody's character doesn't have it in him to oppress, and it takes being put into an ultimate situation like this, where his sense of safe civilly adhering human is completely stripped away. He has nothing left to do but fully be the 'savior' type that his personality type is at its core. This may sound stupid, but I sense a unicorn-ness about Brody's character. The ultimate good versus evil. Which can be read between the lines of this movie.
Whitaker's persona is the opposite of light and good, it is dark and oppressed and thus seeks to oppress. He has become what he was raised from. Backstory vignettes show how his mother was domineering and he still lives with her at age 41. He begins the story as meek and polite and god fearing, but further into the story you see that those were just covers for his true quiet desperation. And once he is placed in a position of power he gets to embody all of that pain that made him feel powerless throughout his life. Like a tortured animal that wants to see his trauma wrought upon another, in a very sociopathic way, his character can't live without experiencing that. It is unfortunate, but as is seen in this movie, that is why there are roles in society for people brought up like this; prison guard.
By the end of the movie, and after empathizing with the characters, you see that humans are just the products of their environments. I would say it is good versus evil, but Whitaker's character is too complex to fully write off as true evil, he is a naive human grown in an unideal home, and I feel bad for him. Brody's character, though more enjoyable to watch and the 'hero' of the story, is somewhat less fulfilling, because he has obviously been raised into a life that has given him freedom and light, he is sort of the fool, as he is in most of his films, and so in a broader sense is regarded with less depth. But as is seen in the last bus scene, it's all about choice, and in the end everybody has one. And Whitaker's character chooses to be dark and Brody's to be light.