The cop should have arrested Sean. He is a detrimental risk to society and he will become a greater threat because he can't just stop being a "superhero" cold turkey. Even though he started by taking out criminals, his anger and cloudy thinking soon escalated big time like at the high school party.
The movie itself is good but the ending sucks.
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Bullies deserve what they get, even if it's more than they bargained for. What happened at the high school party was one of the best parts of the movie. That kid got what he deserved and I can guarantee he won't be bullying anybody for a while - maybe ever again.
shareI think the idea is that both the officers came to the conclusion that due process had failed. When they admit that due process has failed, then it justifies them in their letting Sean get away with it. I think the movie is sort of the anti-batman; it's a though experiment in what vigilantism would really look like, if someone is motivated by tragedy. And when the system seems so broken that those within the system get bitter about the due process, then the system only works to become more broken.
share<i>Even though he started by taking out criminals, his anger and cloudy thinking soon escalated big time like at the high school party. </i>
How do you figure it was "escalated?" The high school kid was no different than the pimp or the child molester or the train derelict. They were all BAD people. They were all BAD people that the law was incapable of handling. And no, this isn't an argument that the high school kid "would have grown up to beat his wife" or some nonsense - he was just a bad person. And Sean took him out. That was the point of putting that scene in there. A vigilante does not discriminate when it comes to evil. He doesn't compromise, he doesn't "try to understand," he doesn't negotiate, he doesn't turn them over to Due Process. He takes out the trash. Same as he did with his father, without hesitation.
It was actually one of my favorite scenes in the film. Sean had no real interest in the girl (at least, none that was developed in any way). He just saw a bad guy doing bad things to an innocent person - and he dealt with it, with extreme vigilante prejudice.
The high school kid was a bad guy. Period. Sean took care of the problem. That's what he does. None of this malleable, relative, subjective, debatable morality - just plain 'ol Good and Evil, and dispatching the latter.
Wasn't there some potential Roid Rage going on, too, by this point?
"I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book." ~ Bradbury
He wasn't just a bad guy. He was an abuser. He probably would have grown up to beat his wife. The signs were there. When we're introduced to his character, we see him verbally abusing his girlfriend. Not only is he verbally abusing her but he is controlling her. Then later on, before the fight started, we see him pulling his girlfriend's arm in front of a room full of people, about ready to hit her. It probably reminded Sean of his dad verbally and physically hurting his mother.
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