By Ben Samples
On October 10th of 1982, two young men broke into the Sisters of Charity Convent in East Harlem, New York. Sometime during their attempt to burglarize the convent, they encountered a 31-year-old nun. They subsequently raped her and carved 27 crucifixes into her body.
Edward Koch, mayor of New York at the time, couldn’t make sense of the crime. Instead, he simply said that he wanted to see those responsible hung, expressing the sentiment most of us would have in the face of so heinous a crime. After all, finding the reason behind such a senseless act is likely futile. It’s much easier to fantasize about a slow and satisfying death for those responsible.
Turns out, we don’t have to do the fantasizing entirely through our own effort. In fact, there’s an entire movie genre dedicated to this particular brand of catharsis — revenge films do most of the work for us. But is this release healthy? And as Christians, how should we approach the genre?
When Abel Ferrara directed Bad Lieutenant, a 1992 film loosely based around the aforementioned crime, he had the perfect opportunity to give the audience the revenge film they craved. With a committed actor in the lead (Harvey Kietel) and his own experience in the revenge genre (Ms. 45), Ferrara could have made a film that gave the audience exactly what they wanted: cinematic retribution.
But Ferrara didn’t make a revenge film. He made something much messier, much less satisfying, and, I’d argue, much better. And perhaps there’s something to learn from Ferrara’s choice.
…
As an audience, we crave revenge films that depict the cold, hard hammer of justice. They give us the satisfaction of seeing wicked criminals on their knees with the barrel of a gun mashed against their foreheads. When the one-liner is spouted and the trigger pulled, we’re given a sense of catharsis. The real world may still be inextricably twisted, but at least the blood-spattered one in front of us has some semblance of old-fashioned justice.
As a Christian audience, I think we enjoy this kind of release just as much as our secular neighbors. Maybe even more.
Perhaps you won’t find many copies of Death Wish on the shelves of fellow Christians, but in their place, you’ll likely find movies like Braveheart and Gladiator. While these films don’t fit as snugly into the revenge genre as John Wick, the heroes of both are propelled into action by the murder and/or rape of their loved ones. And in both, we get to witness our heroes ending the lives of the perpetrators with the edge of a blade.
Both Braveheart and Gladiator were critical and box office smashes. Christians and non-Christians filled theaters and heaped on praise, and both films earned Oscars. They provided the trendy, R-rated reference for pastors to drop on Sunday mornings and even warranted study guides from Christianity Today.
What’s the problem with revenge narratives? After all, they often depict leaders who stand up, stare back in the face of evil, and meet the challenge of the day. Their guns aren’t pointed at the innocent, but the guilty.
Perhaps the problem isn’t as much with revenge films themselves, but with us. What kind of escapism do revenge films offer us that’s so satisfying?
Escapism has been a function of film since its invention and, in many cases, can be healthy — even soul-enriching. Movies provide an outlet for us to unplug from the realities of the world for a couple of hours and experience the emotional satisfaction of a well-told story. Sometimes, even as films provide an escape, they allow us to process reality through a new lens.
If films can provide a healthy escape, where’s the danger? Perhaps Troy Duffy, writer and director of Boondock Saints, provides a fitting case study.
After returning home from work one evening in 1996, Duffy witnessed a heroin dealer dragging a dead woman through the hall of his apartment building. The scene horrified Duffy — as it would any of us. The brokenness and injustice of the world were on full display just outside his front door. But it was in this state of horror that Duffy turned to a keyboard and typed up the screenplay for what would become Boondock Saints — a box-office hit about two Irish Catholic twins who blast their way through the city of Boston, purging the streets of its various evils.
Duffy did what many of us would do in his shoes: he escaped to the world of cinema, not only as a receiver of cathartic violence, but as a giver. The problem is that instead of truthfully communicating his horror and sense of injustice, he imagined a fantasy world where the scum of the city are wiped away by God-sent heroes.
This is where I feel the function of escapism veers into dangerous territory — especially for Christians. Are we enjoying films like Boondock Saints out of a wholesome desire for justice? Do these films reflect our deep longing for peace in a broken world?
Or are we just bloodthirsty?
If I’m honest, my desire for justice gets muddied with my craving for bloody vengeance. It’s not always enough that a movie depicts a criminal facing the consequences of their actions — I need to see them suffer. Why? It’s simple: the real world doesn’t give me that satisfaction.
When I turn on the news and see how saturated the world is becoming with evil, I remember that there are no Irish twins with loaded shotguns ready to rid our society of filth. There are no superheroes or kind-hearted mercenaries dispatching the thieves and murderers in my city.
Instead, there’s the justice system. There are heroes within this system, within the real world. There are individuals fighting for true, honest justice — but they’d be the first to tell you that it’s not a glamorous job. Decades-long investigations lead to dead ends; trials are botched; criminals go free. So we invent cinematic deities to artificially do the job for us. It’s simpler that way, more clean.
At its most wholesome, our justice system removes vengeance and personal vendettas from the equation. If both the laws and lawmakers were always fair and immediate in their judgment, we would be living in a different world. But while a justice system is necessary for a functioning society, it will never be perfect. Whenever there’s a man-made system, you can count on it being inefficient and messy. Unlike your average revenge film, our justice system doesn’t execute criminals within 90 minutes of their offenses. Even further, this is a system made up of fallible individuals who are susceptible to corruption and greed, sometimes becoming perpetrators of the very crimes they’re tasked with combating.
This conflict between the world of reality and the world of revenge films brings us back to Bad Lieutenant.
. . .
Coming on the heels of his role as Mr. White in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Harvey Keitel would seem to be the perfect casting choice for a gruff, Dirty Harry-esque gunslinger. He could hunt down the two boys responsible for the rape of the nun, cock the hammer on his revolver, and give them their just due.
But this isn’t what we get in Bad Lieutenant. Instead of a sharpshooting cop, Keitel portrays a world-weary, misogynistic addict who preys the streets of Brooklyn looking for his next fix. He seems to be a detective in name only, abusing his authority to satisfy his every debased impulse.
Despite (or, perhaps, because of) the punishing nature of Bad Lieutenant, there’s a scene near the end of the film that I can’t shake. It takes place in a chapel where the lieutenant meets the nun who was raped. He proceeds to beg her for any information that could lead to the capture of the perpetrators.
“The other cops will just put these guys through the system,” he says, drunkenly slurring his words. “They're juveniles. They'll walk. Get it? But I’ll beat the system and do justice. Real justice. For you.”
“I have already forgiven them,” the nun replies simply.
For the first time in the film, we’re on the side of the lieutenant. What right does she have to withhold information that could lead to true justice and protect other women like her?
In this scene we’re presented with two opposite viewpoints: the lieutenant is seeking vengeful, bloodthirsty retribution, while the nun extends a forgiveness so extreme that it endangers others.
As the nun exits the chapel, the lieutenant falls to his knees and starts to sob. He’s drunk, confused, and completely broken. It’s at this point, when the lieutenant has hit rock bottom, that he sees Jesus standing a few feet away, staring back at him.
For all we know, the lieutenant may be experiencing a drug-induced hallucination — but he reacts to this image of Christ as if it were real. With tears pouring down his face and saliva hanging from his mouth, the lieutenant launches into a profane, raging diatribe against Jesus.
Jesus, who wears a crown of thorns and whose body is bloodied, stares at the lieutenant in silence. Even as the lieutenant spews vulgarities and questions Christ’s intentions, he’s met with only silence.
“Where were you? Where the f**k were you?” he screams.
No response.
At this point, something shifts in the lieutenant. Perhaps it’s a change of heart, or maybe he’s simply run out of rage — but he begins to crawl toward Jesus, pouring out an ugly, honest prayer.
“I’m sorry! l tried to do the right thing, but I’m weak. I’m too f*****g weak! l need you to help me. Help me!”
He crumples before Jesus and kisses his feet.
“Forgive me. Forgive me, please,” he says looking up. But Jesus is gone, replaced with a confused elderly woman staring down at the lieutenant.
Even after this experience, the lieutenant doesn’t get a stereotypical redemptive arc. Bad Lieutenant is still a tragedy at its core and it doesn’t offer us an easy ending. It’s a grueling, frustrating film, but one that honestly grapples with both the rage we feel living in an unjust world and the personal role we play in creating this injustice. And maybe it’s the type of film we need.
We enjoy escaping to worlds populated by vengeful gunslingers — they make it easier to cope. But maybe it’s time we recognize that there’s something deeply mournful about revenge films. They depict a world where men cope with the tragedy of loss and the senselessness of evil by simply pulling a trigger. We long for this world and we have the ticket stubs to prove it.
But if I were to risk being honest with myself (and with God), I’d say I share more in common with Keitel’s lieutenant than John Wick. Whereas John Wick is the one-man army whose vengeful confidence rises with his body count, Keitel's lieutenant is confused and broken, longing for retribution but knowing that the ultimate release is found in forgiveness rather than violence. On my own, I’m just as crooked and angry as the rest of the world and I sometimes struggle to make sense of everything around me.
They crush your people, Lord,
hurting those you claim as your own.
They kill widows and foreigners
and murder orphans.
“The Lord isn’t looking,” they say,
“and besides, the God of Israel doesn’t care.”
— Psalm 94:5-7
As we await God’s ultimate retribution in the end times, we do our best to create effective systems of justice. But as even our greatest attempts fall short, we turn to revenge films in an attempt to make this waiting period less grueling.
But in light of reality and our failed attempts to defy it, we’d do well to remember Paul’s simple encouragement, which came long before films offered us an easy release:
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
— Romans 12:19
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