The effect of movies, especially Hollywood, on these Indonesian killers

This is a theme that reverberates throughout the film: These Indonesian murderous vermin, especially Anwar Congo, lived in some delusional world that shuttled between cinema and real life. It was the movies that they'd seen that shaped their homicidal identities as "freemen" gangsters.

Which begs the question: What effects does cinema (or the "reel" world) have upon the real world?

"All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie." BOB DYLAN