Did anyone notice the similarities between some of the plot points at the start of Episode 2 and "Casablanca" i.e. Mike (=Rick) meets a woman doctor (=Ilse). They have a brief affair then she suddenly leaves him. He eventually meets up with her and then she announces she is married. She later recalls she thought her husband was dead and has now discovered he is alive.
shareI noticed the exact same thing. But the word isn't similarity, it's "homage" I believe.
But the three episodes were so compelling, I'm willing to forgive it.
I noticed the same "homage" in that scene and later towards the end when Mike, Aliya and her husband are discussing Mike taking her to England. Very similar to the Casablanca scene where Rick, Ilsa and Victor Laszlo discuss Rick taking Ilsa away using the letters of transit.
Well, if you're going to homage, homage from the best.
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So your point is that modern war is just a bunch of guys shooting at each other. You are how old? I'm not being sarcastic, I'm just trying to figure out the age of someone who only wants to see an armed ping pong match.
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You want Mike's relationship with the doctor removed from the film. Which would leave a bunch of men shooting at another bunch of men, and Mike exonerated.
If Mike had done nothing wrong, then the film would simply have been Danny's fake soldier efforts for money bringing an injustice to the true soldiers (father and son). The end would not be the convincing trilemma but Mike either seeking or foregoing retribution.
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No, I took my 'I'll delete' back -- I reread your comment. Yes, I had replied to you.
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I explained entirely (above) how your simplification degrades the plot.
You don't understand how Mike's being compromised achieves the objective of the film? If you remove one leg of a three-legged stool it falls over.
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You are thinking linearly - a, b, c, d. The plot is structural, and contains three dimensions: one for each of the men. The plot was constructed carefully to achieve the trilemma in the end scene, in which each man is as compromised/guilty as the next. What other bad thing would you have Mike do to get to the last scene?
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If you take Mike's error out, you lose the last scene. What would you substitute for his 'shoulda known better' error? Do you understand the kid's error? Danny's error is more clear.
If you write, this is an important issue to understand. Just saying.
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To achieve the final scene, each of the men had to make an equally egregious error. I am curious, :-) What do you see as the kid's error? That may give me a clue as to why you do not see what I am saying.
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And I am saying that each of the three main characters had an equally cliched story and error. You see the cliche in Mike's story, but not in the other two.
Yes, Warren Brown: his cliched error was that he tried to fix something that could not be fixed, in part due to his intense need to prove himself. He thinks he made his error because he did not have enough experience to know better, and the guidance he was receiving was bad. But in fact, he should have known that he was putting himself and everyone else at risk -- he's equally as guilty as Mike and Danny.
Mike was old/experienced enough to know better, but he was undermined by a family who were disengaged from him precisely because of what he thought was his service to others. But he clearly knew better. His scenes where deliberately designed to make us feel: no, that's not what he should be doing!!
For all three, the writer/film/actors wanted to make us want to reach out into the film to say "No!! Don't DO THAT!!!" That's the reason that Mike's Romeo & Juliet story was so 'weak': We know how it had to end, because we've read Shakespeare and seen all of the countless Hollywood cliche versions.
You happened to dislike/disbelieve/derealize Mike's error more than the other two. But someone else might be more likely to discount/derealize the drugging/money valuelessness of Danny, or decry that the kid's claim for innocence was valid. The film was a Rorschach of which of their behaviors troubles us most.