MovieChat Forums > Luck (2012) Discussion > Ace's Motivations not JUST About Revenge

Ace's Motivations not JUST About Revenge

posted 12 years ago by fletcbk
6 replies | jump to latest

Although Ace definitely wants revenge against his shady partners, I also think that he just really wants to be a better person in the world and knows that's not possible if his horrible associates still have their hooks in him.

I loved the last shot of Ace looking wistfully at his horse, but I think that really symbolized his appreciation of these pure creatures, and also what he wants for himself. Mike is a very sinister figure (killing a man for no reason, not above using Ace's grandchild to trip him up into getting killed), and Ace just desperately wants to shake off these amoral leeches to run a more pure, giving business.

It's a beautiful character arc, and I'm sorry we won't get to see it finished.

[–] marcjacobspants 12 years ago

Yes I think you have a point, though I am confident Ace has a pretty murky history himself. But if you recall in Episode 1 I think it is - anyway in a scene in the car with Gus - he explains that he and Mike split even before he went to prison, and that Mike got the boat and Gus got the Apartment. But Mike stashed his drugs in the Apartment anyway. And in the final episode Gus asks how far he can take it before "his people" turn away.

Wish we would get more of the story, but oh well.

[–] cfamick 12 years ago

That must have been one hell of an apartment.

[–] thisguyagain 12 years ago

totally agree, its kind of why i like his rapport with the parole officer, he struck me as the kind of guy who can just tell by looking at a guy which way he's leaning on terms of reform (he's probably doing it years), and right away him and ace get on, its subtle, but sooooo effective.

would have been amazing watching this charecter peeling back layer after layer over one or two more seasons.

[–] fletcbk 11 years ago

"would have been amazing watching Ace pull back layer after layer over a few more seasons"

Absolutely, and I'm sorry he didn't get at least one more to finish his arc. I think the show was trying to tap into a more spiritual side of gangsters and what they want to leave behind in the world...or at least Ace was thinking that way, in my opinion. That would have been a really unique and beautiful arc.

[–] murakami06 11 years ago

There really is no other show like this, except of course Deadwood, with the Wire a close cousin. Sopranos styled shows take the inherent greed and frenzy of an individual to its furthest point of sanity. Deadwood and Luck were about individuals coming together to create something better out of the muck and madness.

[–] MrsAlSwearengen 11 years ago

Deadwood and Luck were about individuals coming together to create something better out of the muck and madness.

I like the way you put that, it's exactly what Deadwood was about. I wish we'd had more of Luck to watch it unfold on that show, too. I guess the best example of it in Luck S1 was watching the degenerate gamblers come together to save each other from themselves.

I think Deadwood and Luck were also about the good rising to the surface in people who never knew they had any good in them.

On subsequent viewings of David Milch's shows you realize how inherently positive his message is, there is such pleasure in watching his characters transform from damaged and dangerous people into damaged people who find themselves doing good things despite all the cards stacked against them.

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled by the last priest