I could never understand that.
Read the book as well, but maybe they explained it.
Holden would have had ample time outdoors to pick off the three.
Also, the authorities might have gone lighter on his sentence or dismissed it.
He didn't want any witnesses.
shareHolden was here for purely personal revenge.
He also was a hunter whose back story to which we are not privy. The victims did become unfortunate BAIT.
Had he not been there who ever had been the victim this time would have perished.
Oddly enough it seems that in so many tales where a successful vigilante is at work we see the authorities spending proportionately more time chasing those who are doing their work for them than the perpetrator who may have had many chances but always manages to slip through the legal net [scales of justice etc]which is not balanced. We are advised that NO ONE IS ABOVE the law and if the guilty are getting rubbed out it dilutes that muddle of law maker and keepers potential for payment. Just think of the big picture of how many POORLY paid LAWYERS would lose out if the potential clients were always being eliminated. Superman and Batman aided this particular gravy train did they not by making sure the bad guy got caught and received that [self served cash cow called a] fair trial.
I have been trawling around looking for this for some time now.
I liked Holden on screen and think this showed him as what so many fathers would like to have been in cases where a loved one has been so cruelly treated.
I have not seen this since the 1970s but I thought I thought the boys had done this [as a sort of coming of age thing] before going off to VIETNAM and had rekindled this activity as boys holiday. If this was so using the horror of VIETNAM as a background psychological reasoning for post war trauma and acting out a cruel situation is a wrong interpretation and if considered to be a real and frequent occurrence it does not bode well for today's youth returning from the unpopular middle east [self inflicted conflicts].
Giving already cruel people the opportunity to be [legally] cruel will not cure them but exacerbate that personality.
Personally I would have no problem with summary execution of all scumbags who behave in the manner of our three respected college boy american heroes and if a god could be available to hand it out I would accept that. BTW not getting at the USA other than they were the one being used as the examples in this story.