No I got that the director wanted me to feel mortality, especially with the dream of the dad waiting in what was effectively death. Had the terminator not been the villian in the movie, it may have had some sort of effect. That's why it is pointless. You can't expect me to empathize with a cowardly sheriff fearing his mortality when you have a cartoon character of a villian that absolutely no one is interested in catching while he rampages through the movie.
Had we actually had conflict resolution (you know story writing 101), it may have had an effect. There is none of that. The movie should be titled "**** happens" because that is pretty much the story. Random coincidences that forward a plot to nothing.
This is counter culture movie-ism at it's finest. You crap out a turd of a flick and slap "art flim" on it and the critics go all ga ga on it. The movie snobs jump on it because it is an "art film" and voila "Oscar". Along the way someone forgot to make something that actually entertains the viewer.
Witness your discussion groups trying to find the meaning. Let me help with that:
The villian is two dimensional. He has the same tired pseudo morality you see in other films in an attempt to come across as cool. He wanders the countryside killing at will and without any real repercussions. He is immune to things like shock from massive wounds. In a matter of days he can shrug off shotgun blasts or walk away from crashes with bones sticking out of his body and never going into shock. In short, he is a crappy version of the terminator. His acting is about as wooden though as he shows no emotion at any time about anything and speaks in a completely monotone, deep, gravely voice (director would say "always threatening"). He does rip off a pretty famous batman villian with his "flipping this coin will decide if you die" routine.
Your main protagonist is a survivalist bad ass. Of course he was in vietnam because we want to completely nail the cliche. He is so adept at spotting potential ambushes, he foils the villians at every turn. That is until he is killed off camera and we don't know how or why.
Your secondary protagonist is a cowardly sheriff who reluctantly brushes with death and eventually settles for a quiet retirement that he hates. He never has the money. The interaction (or lack there of) in the hotel room is only to create some tension in a movie desperately searching for it.
Your main secondary villian is a charming killer with a heart. One so reputable he can track down a man he knows nothing about in a few days but can't get over a fence to get what he came for. His death is so anti climactic you figure he must be awfully new at this life of crime.
Your big villian behind the scenes in on screen for maybe 5 minutes. Enough to hire the incompetent main secondary villian, establish that "yes a rich white guy is indeed behind all these shenanigans", and to die. He dies in a large office building in the middle of day in a bustling metropolis. Somehow no description of the killer is made known nor does someone care that a rich white guy was just blown away in his office.
Your protagonist's love interest is a moron. Knowing that her husband is in deep trouble and they will likely need to be on the run, she drags along her stereotypical loud mouthed mother in law. Fortunately for her the police are equally stupid and don't put her under police protection despite the serial killer on the loose and likely gunning for her. She gets the same off screen death as the rest of her family.
Sundry secondary characters also die relatively pointless deaths in the movie. Since the characters in the movie don't care that they are dead, I really don't either.
I believe that about sums it up.
