I was a little confused by it, but here's how I assessed it: Denis Leary was angry about the deaths of his family/friends, so he did it to give Noah Emmerich a scare, and send him a message to stop ranting about minorities when more serious things were at stake. Is that how anyone else reads it? I just noticed he seems bored/annoyed rather than convinced by by Emmerich's racism up to that point.
shareThat's a good way of looking at it, but I thought Bobby also did it in part to save the black guy a beating, which may have resulted in his death, hence possibly saving his life. By scaring the crap out of his friends, they lost their "appetite" for a minority bashing. By scaring the crap out of the black guy, he sent the message to him and the rest of his friends in the nearby black community to stay the hell out of an Irish, violent, racist neighborhood. It is evident from the beginning of the film that Bobby has a lot more morality than the guys in his crew. But, I think your interpretation is valid, too. There's a lot of depth to that scene and a lot of ways to analyze it.
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Oh yes,make sure you take it easy on the black guys...whatever you do.They
have White People buffaloed,how can 10% of this country run it by raping white women,ganging up on single White Men,Killing White Cops,Killing Pit Bulls,torturing them.........and we stand by and let them do it.
It does not happen in Ireland,I live there.
When in doubt, run like hell!share
2 C.S. Wood - not disagreeing with anything you say of course but man, it often paints a SAD and COMMON picture of humanity, with all the ego and ignorance it sadly entails.
And not a word about "heroes and villains" and "good guys and bad guys" like in action movies to be found, just grim reality and arguments against someone's wrongful thoughts.
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my interpretation of this scene was that it was bobby's way of telling noah emmerich's character, 'you know what, u act as if u have all this hatred in you towards blacks but when it comes down to it are you really willing to go through with the violence?' - why did bobby do this? personally i think it's because he was actually annoyed at himself for his own lack of action at the death of billy crudup, which only got worse when his irish cousin got killed. this conunudrum reminded me of hamlet, where hamlet wants and knows he has to take revenge for the murder of his father but he is full of doubts and worries and he delays and delays. the delaying is what made this story (and hamlet!) so powerful because by the time bobby kills him at the end i was ready to pull the trigger myself!