Character Symbolism and Appreciating Freedom

Hidden within a Lone Wolf McQuade with terrorists style Chuck Norris action movie is a deeper subplot going on.

Rostov said in the movie that America hasn't been invaded for nearly 200 years and that the people here were taking their freedom for granted. In addition, he would use that weakness against them because "they are their own worst enemy." So in Americans complacency, a foreign enemy would perpetrate violence to prove a point. This, in a way, is making the terrorists a necessary evil to show us how we are living the wrong way and through punishment correct us and how we see our country. Almost a patriot terrorist in effect.

This lends to my theory that if Rostov is the necessary evil, then there has to be a necessary good, and that's Matt Hunter (Chuck Norris). He represents the common man that lives on his own private property presumably in the Everglades or in Cajun Country, enjoying a solitary life. He marcher of the beat of a different drum than most of the other people, but he appreciates his freewill. It can be argued that the average person is just too self-absorbed to truly see the bigger picture for greater ideals. For the duality of Hunter and Rostov, the people have a hero and a villain to turn on their attention.

What further backs up the point about Rostov's overall symbolism is that the TV news reporter says that the government has suspended citizens' Constitutional Rights and initiating total martial law on the people. So the Congress suspends the Posse Comitatus Act that paves the way for military checkpoints and a full military presence to "keep law and order." In Rostov's point of view, he sees Americans giving up all their liberties for the new law of the land: security.

What's interesting is thinking that the government would use this terrorist invasion to further usurp the freedoms issued by the Constitution. While the movie does not show what happens after Rostov is dead, one can take one or two opinions on the matter.

1) The government pats themselves on the back and says "We rid you of your Constitution Rights and aren't you citizens glad we did that to protect you?" Therefore, using further threats or 'suspected terrorists from within' to perpetrate less freedom for the lives of the American people, living in effect in a paranoid dictatorship. This is not unlike the way George W. Bush did after 9/11 or how Tsar Alexander III reacted after the assassination of his father, Tsar Alexander II.

Or

2) As in my theory about Rostov being a necessary evil, the American people learn the value of their freedoms embossed in the Constitution and become well aware that they live in a great country. They are secure not with giving UP liberties, but appreciating the ones that we are bestowed. Thus not letting the size of government power get so all encompassing that it makes them not much better than the dictatorships that we despise. Thus becoming more like Matt Hunter and less like the asleep at the wheel people they were before the invasion.