MovieChat Forums > Sin (2004) Discussion > Not really a revenge flick, but a morali...

Not really a revenge flick, but a morality play, a GREAT ONE!!!


Sopilers...

We all know how Ving Rhames can play REAL bad motherfockers like no one (fock Samuel L Jackson), and he doesn't let us down here.

And how Gary Oldman can play creeps like the best out there (again he doesn't let us down).

But what at first looks like a simple revenge flick is really a morality play, about sin, in both heroes and villains.

The bad guy, Charlie, has sinned big time (cop killer, smut peddler, drug dealer), yet he's not totally bad (he ha a conscience regarding his brother) and he's tormented by his sin (he let his brother take the fall for him), even though is implicit he didn't expect his brother to get convicted (obvious lack of evidence) nor killed (suposetly killed himself), yet he died, and he's in part to blame, and he knows it.

Eddie Burns is a former cop who even though hasn't been bought nor stolen nor skimmed drug busts, he's become just as brutal as the animals he fought, if not worse ("Whatever you've seen and done, I've seen and done worse") and he's also sinned, big time ("I made him hang himself, and I laughed when he pissed his dirty drawers like a bitch"), but he doesn't realize/accept it yet.

So Charlie sets out to punish Eddie, and Eddie sets out to avenge whatever Charlie does to him. And here's the heart of the tale: neither gets any satisfaction nor really advances (Eddie is too cold hearted to be hurt by his sister's suffering nor his, and Charlie can't fell any more pain than he already does).

And finally when both reveal their secrets (Eddie that he KILLED Charlie's brother, Charlie that his brother was innocent), they come to realize that they are no longer different, both guilty as sin, and that both are paying for it, so further revenge is futile. That's why Eddie tries to save Charlie from the quicksand, he's no better than him, and has no right to judge him.

And the best, the captain (Brian Cox, the best) how he says that regulations are to protect THEM, from becoming like Eddie and his partner (booze, meecong stick, whatever every pervert has an excuse for their misdeeds). And he's proven right in the end.

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And I also like the part where Ving Rhames shoots off his own hand and then kills multiple bad guys and drives all night after Gary Oldman without going into shock.

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