If we could just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we've got something here.

The cynical motivations presented in film noir style films certainly create unpleasant antiheros. Last Thursday in my film appreciation course we watched the Robert Altman 1992 film, The Player. This movie told the story of a Hollywood production executive, Griffin Mill, who murders a screen play writer under the belief that the given screen play writer was the source of threatening messages. Though plenty of circumstantial evidence, the clearly guilty Mill escaped incarceration. Mill, as the antihero of the plot, had a sense of ambiguous morality that was maintained throughout the film. Due to ambiguity in his sense of moral judgment and selfish pursuit of success I experienced building distaste for his character. Mill repeatedly attempted to use his career’s demands for cutthroat studio decision making as an excuse for moral shortcomings but any variation of such personally found week bargaining power. Thus from the beginning of the film his character was relatively putrid. As the movie progressed I felt as that Mill’s regression of character could be compared to kicking a dead horse. I already don’t like the character and yet his nonexistent moral frame is still being degraded in the viewer’s eye.

My distaste for Griffin Mill as the antihero seems to illuminate qualities that deter from the movie’s film noir style. Most film noir antiheros roles tend to blur the line of good or evil. Such as in Sunset Boulevard where the audience is left to decide whether Norma Desmon deserves sympathy or admission to the mad house. Should you root for her, root against her, or try to reason out her situation? Despite Robert Altman’s inclusion of many film noir elements, I feel that his depiction of the movie’s antihero misses the mark and consequently loses some of my appreciation for his film. Altman appears to create a monster of a character where there is no doubt of dislike towards the antihero. I want the antihero to have a question of morality that battles my mind as I watch the film, not just building evidence of purely angelic character. The plot should tease my psyche as I battle a mental duel of love and hate over the antihero. I recently watched Law Abiding Citizen, starring Gerard Butler, and I found my moral frame being questioned by Gerard Butler’s motives as an antihero type character. For ninety percent of the movie I was cheering on his path of murder and revenge! His wit, intellect, and appealing vigilante motives kept me on his side despite such a violent path of destruction. I felt his character epitomized the relationship that an audience should have with an antihero and maybe Griffin Mill could take a couple notes.