MovieChat Forums > One Way (2007) Discussion > And the message is... SPOILERS

And the message is... SPOILERS

posted 15 years ago by lovelindvall
20 replies | jump to latest

...an eye for an eye?

Or more like, a head for an eye.

The fact that the rape victim gets back at the perpetrator by doing unto him the same thing that he had done unto her and worse, lowers her to his level.
You might argue that that was the only way for her to exact justice because of the fault in the justice system but that's a creation of the movie, it's not realistic.

They claim they lost all evidence because the victim took a shower but it was partially anal rape and that is bound to make some serious damage, they should still have found traces that could be linked to the perpetrator, either from her or from the perpetrator himself. After all, it was a violent struggle.

She loses the trial because of two other reasons:

1) The main character lies in open court, claiming that the victim was right behind him as he left the premise thus removing more credibility from her case but why the prosecution wanted him there in the first place beats me.
He has no information that could help her case whatsoever. It's a forced attempt to push the plot forward.

2) In her past, she had been the victim of another rape but this is all very vague, probably on purpose.
In the opening sequence we see her get chased down and raped by a couple of boys. Michael Clark Duncan shows up and saves the day by mercilessly gunning down the teenagers. It seems nobody believed her story or the existance of a killer general, which means that they couldn't find the bodies of the murdered boys, which means that the rape never happened and it was all in her head but then, why would she report it?
It goes around in endless circles, which is probably why they don't elaborate further.
And if the rape really took place, why would she repeat the same mistake twice and shower after the rape, removing all evidence?

The very existance of the general seems to be a very unnecessary, supernatural element that didn't contribute to the movie as a whole. He could have worked as some kind of theme to the movie if he would have reappeared in the end to make a closure.

But he doesn't.

Instead, we get to watch the emotional reunion of the main character and his fiancee as he's forgiven eventhough he's cheated on her, numerous times and lied to her constantly. He's a coward who does nothing but covering his own back, almost all the way through the movie.

Are we suppose to feel for him?
Are we suppose to feel for anyone in this movie?

I can't find a single likable character.
Even the rapists sister who seems to be a girl with her head on her shoulders, in the end, turns out to have been covering for her rapist brother and her corrupt family all the time and could have prevented the murder of her brother and the mess that followed.

And this movie seems to take place in a universe, very different from our own, where a statement from a witness who lied under oath can still be considered credable. Neither are there any repercussions to lying under oath.

It's a universe where a police officer says:
"I'm officer Drake, ... Who are YOU!?"

Rather than:
"I'm officer Drake, I'm here regarding..."

Strange...

To those of you who disagree, I apologize for the length of my complaint.

On the brighter side of things, I can say that I thought the movie was well acted and the soundtrack was fairly interesting.
But other than that, I suspect I'd only rewatch this movie as a portrayal of militant feminism.

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] lovelindvall 15 years ago

I'd given up that anyone would read my post at this point.

Thanks for reading and agreeing.

I've calmed myself down now.

[–] cmcurrie2 14 years ago

The people who don't 'get' this film expect women to get help, support and justice from the system -- and when that is not forthcoming, as it often is not -- to accept their status as victims.

The two women are not perfect -- they decide quite a bit too late to not remain victims. Family, friends, and the law had not been their saviors -- we are all told they will be -- and that made them double-victims . . . until they took matters into their own hands. Not many of us would agree with their methods, but their actions gave them back their lives and their respect.

Re: your questions on the reason the advertising assistant lost her case:
1. Til's character was always sitting on the defense side, not the prosecution's side. The DA assumed he would tell the truth but she made the gravest mistake an attorney can make: don't ask a question unless you know the answer. She knew the answer, but she failed to realize he would lie. People lie under oat all the time -- what world do you live in??
2. Do you think all rape cases are prosecuted?? . . and decided correctly? There were four boys -- not 'a couple of boys' -- and they were not killed. Probably not a thing happened to them. She made an accusation, and then backed down -- presumably after she realized that no one would listen to her. The general was an enactment of her wish for a savior in the first rape. He was her mental coach after the second rape. She knew what she wanted to do, but she needed someone encouraging her -- so she envisioned him.

There are no winners in this film . . . but almost everyone learned a bitter lesson: the parents, Til's character, the two lead women, the police detective, the DA, the Eric Robert's character, the nun . . . . (Which is why so many of the commenters are so angry about this film.)

[–] lovelindvall 14 years ago

1. I do know that Til was sitting on the defense side all the time but I don't understand why he was. I'd say the attorney's mistake was to bring a witness to the stand that couldn't help her case in the slightest, even if he had told the truth.

2. So you're take on the intro is that she really was raped by the four boys and afterwards hallucinated about the general killing them and finally went to the police telling them about everything including the hallucination but not until she'd taken a shower, removing all the evidence? Seems a little too convenient for the movie's plot which only works if the law can't protect a rape victim. So in order to get the message through they create a scenario where the rape victim had been raped earlier and told an unbelievable story which can be referred to in order to make her second rape accusation lose credability. I also find it obscure that a simple shower removes all the evidence, especially after the anal rape. To me, it all seems like cheap writing.

I'm not angry with this film because everybody learned a lesson. I'm angry because it promotes revenge over forgiveness and paints a very unrealistic picture thus squandering the important subject matter.

You're going to die screaming... and I'm going to watch. Am I telling the truth?

[–] the_zookeeper 14 years ago

So, who wants to bet lovelindall has never been raped? I do!

The gene pool could use a little chlorine......

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Not_Afraid_of_snakes_or_spiders 13 years ago

And the message is.......let Dexter Morgan take care of the bad guys. He sure would have in this movie.

Those who refer to work as the highlight of their lives obviously don't have one.

[–] savvysearch 12 years ago

Zookeeper, have YOU been raped? You ask that question like asking someone if they've ever heard of Madonna. He's talking about levels of justice. In other words, because you stole my car, it's a little overboard to shoot you in the head.

[–] djsnafu23 12 years ago

Yeah some scary folk here...

....

http://soundcloud.com/dj-snafu-bankrupt-euros

Coz lifes too short to listen to Madlib

[–] TheMan18 (12454) a year ago

"So, who wants to bet lovelindall has never been raped? I do!"

2 the zoo-keeper - as much as I hate to break it to you and to a lot of people on the internet out there, but I have met plenty of people who themselves were NOT the victims of "such deed" but even THEY at times spoke very ill of the matter and the perpetrators too, considering them not just mere offenders out to be punished for their wrongdoing but monsters ought to be destroyed, yes even though they didn't deal with the matter personally, they still despised those culprits with a passion and spoke with foam at the mouth and gasped breath very badly of the matter.

So I respect many of those "because you didn't go through it you wouldn't know how it really is" posts but thing is even those who also didn't go through it were very damning of the matter, in fact, I often experienced their attitudes long before I learned the harsh truth of the matter and sad statistics too, often proclaiming to myself "and this is just a fact of life, not cosmic evil" type of mantra.

Make of that what you will, but it is true too.

[–] TheMan18 (12454) a year ago

Plus, and NO OFFENSE intended to ANYONE or even ANYTHING (including even blatant COMMON SENSE, subject matter aside) out there, but just to remind some of you, and whilst in this matter it may or even indeed IS that way too, but just to inform you, no one in life who hasn't go through a certain however bad experience would EVER really know PERSONALLY what it is like.

On (maybe lesser or same) however obvious notes, none of us in here have been say killed either or died from some natural causes, so most of us will never know what death is like.

I know that other matter of course is also a sensitive issue, on obvious and not so ones a level, but still...

And even THEN, some people can be more educated on something and guess correctly, others may simply take guesses but be nowhere near actual reality. Although we are told things too, besides obvious ones about how wrong they are etc and for many that is seemingly enough.

[–] poserpro 11 years ago

I used to watch a film in VHS some 25 or so years ago, it was a film about a girl being sexually attacked by some men and she got revenge by killing each of them, one scene is she cut off a rapist's penis off while he had bath or something.

Is rapist deserved to live, if he is likely to commit such crime again to more innocent women ? Ask yourself again, it happens every minute.

[–] lovelindvall 11 years ago

The movie you're referring to is "I spit on your grave" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077713/
There's also a remake from 2010. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1242432/

My answer to your question would be yes, the rapist deserves to live. He should be punished of course, by a functioning legal system I might add, not through vigilante justice. He should be put in prison so he cannot commit such a crime again and hopefully be rehabilitated.
Do you think it is ethical to punish one crime by comitting an even more serious one?

You're going to die screaming and I'm going to watch. Am I telling the truth?

[–] Nirhtuc 11 years ago

The message is that more often than not, there is no justice! Even giving the death penalty for rapists (and god forbid, serial rapists!) is not enough justice for what innocent women, children, AND men who are raped have to go through! 'Forgiving' rape?! Are you crazy? Say that after you or someone close to you goes through rape- if you still do, you're either a saint or an idiot!

[–] lovelindvall 11 years ago

If I myself or someone close to me were to be raped of course I'd want the rapist slowly tortured to death and that's exactly why we as a society can't allow the victim of a crime to be the one deciding what punishment is suitable because, let's face it, there would be death penalty for theft.
No punishment imaginable is ever enough to make up for the suffering of rape victims. The only thing we can do as a society is to try prevent rape from happening in the first place and to make sure those who have committed rape won't do it again in as a humane way as possible.

You're going to die screaming and I'm going to watch. Am I telling the truth?

[–] Not_Afraid_of_snakes_or_spiders 11 years ago

lovelindvall, you can't tell ckhafre anything. All that poster knows how to do is stoop to name calling and make threats via PM. By the way, I'm still waiting on ckhafre to come and "beat the sh*t" out of me. You gotta love the internet. Nothing but a haven for the anonymous tough guys out there.

We're mad at Mike. Do you know who we're mad at? Mike? You dang right!

[–] Zombie55 7 years ago

By the way, OP and others here, have any of you seen this little known 1995 Hollywoood direct to video psychological police thriller "Someone to Die For" (1995) by Clay Borris and starring Corbin Bernsen?

In that film, we find out that a woman who has been sexually abused by her stepfather who was a cop, later goes out of her way to rape and sexually assault her lover, a male police officer, whilst threatening to kill him as well as that lady reporter. And yet in that movie, we still feel sorry for her.

If you think that in this film the victim lowered herself to that level by doing to her attacker what he did to her, do you think that in that movie, the woman also lowered herself given that she has done it to someone who HASN'T done it to her?

(There is another DIFFERENT twist to THAT movie but we'll talk about it later.)

The greatest trick the Devil has ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist!

[–] Not_Afraid_of_snakes_or_spiders 7 years ago

I never quite understood why someone would take revenge on another person who had nothing to do with what happened to them. That just makes no sense. Some men/women get hurt by someone of the opposite gender and they get their revenge on some random man/woman. I guess that makes them feel better? So, yes the victim in the film "Someone to Die For" REALLY lowered herself. There is NO excuse for harming someone who did nothing to you.

"There is no reason to bring every cotton pickin book you own into this dadburn gym!"-Fall 1987

[–] Zombie55 7 years ago

Well, perhaps so, maybe or not quite - maybe its not so simple as that right?

Then again, in Abel Ferrara's classic "Ms .45" (1981), its lead female protagonist after being a victim of rape goes out of her way to not only just kill her rapists in that film, but also plenty of the men who hasn't done anything to her and possibly wrong at all - and definitely didn't deserve to die.

I take it you haven't seen "Someone to Die For" (1995) by Clay Borris?

I have - although it is practically a little seen and almost completely forgotten direct to video Hollywood psychological police mystery thriller with Corbin Bernsen (of "The Dentist" (1996) fame and others) in leading role. I own that movie on video - yes I still use VHS even in this day and age of DVDs, Blu-Rays and online movie watching, if only because on no other format is it actually available, but if you still have a video recorder or video cassette player, you can buy that film online at Amazon on VHS.

Its nothing TOO special overall, and is actually in itself at best a pretty average film, although it does have some interesting moments and I would say its worth a look once, but don't expect too much from it.

I am probably exagerrating in making ANY comparisons between that film and this one, except it does have a female on male you know what scene, although its different in Someone to Die For than how it was here in One Way, both in terms of motivation, circumstances and even the way in which it was done.

But the thing is, in that film, it was actually very SAD that they somehow turned that woman into a villain like that and then revealed that she had a traumatic past involving her stepfather who by the way was also a police officer.

I'm probably giving a spoilers though but later after this, ANOTHER main twist is revealed when it turns out that it was actually that man, the main cop, and who was previously a victim of and in a confrontation with that woman, who killed those police officers that he blamed for some kind of negligence which resulted in his daughter's death.

The one thing that was NOT made clear though is whether or not that woman, who was also someone with whom he developed a relationship after meeting her in a mental hospital (watch the film and you'll find out), was ALSO responsible for the murders of those cops, or whether her attack on him and attempt to kill him was an entirely SEPARATE event/incident and him carrying out those cop murders was a thing entirely of his own with her not knowing anything about it. But maybe once you do see that film and analyze the whole storyline you might understand it better than I did.

The one thing I will no doubt say for sure is that both Someone to Die For and One Way says that even if women may at times also do wrong, it is mainly men who are sadly in the world more to blame for and in charge of serious wrongdoings although no one is entirely totally good or totally evil, and the second twist of Someone to Die For involving the male cop being ultimately turning out to be the man responsible for those cop murders only reinforces that point.

The greatest trick the Devil has ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist!

[–] TheMan18 (12454) a year ago

" you're either a saint"
And IF you are a saint in THIS matter, you're a BAD one, correct?

Then again, the nun has forgiven it in "Bad Lieutenant" (1992) movie.