inside man

***Spoilers***

I saw Inside Man earlier this week. I really enjoyed it. It's the first movie in a while that I thought looked good and was excited to see and it ended up being really good. I love movies. Especially when they are good :) This made up for the disaster of a movie that I watched with Mr. Guadspot last week, V for Vendetta. What a stinker.
I loved every minute of Inside Man. When it was over I sat puzzled as to why it was rated R. Sure, it had a few F words and I guess that is enough, but heck there are PG13's with that word in it so where is the difference? I guess it's in the numbers. Other than that one little problem there was only one other place that was objectionable and I think it was really the reason for the R rating. There is a scene where the main character, Dalton Russell, sits in the bank vault with the only child taken hostage. He has his mask off which he doesn't do for anyone else and the boy wasn't forced to where the jumpsuits like the other hostages. The boy has a PSP and Dalton starts talking with him about what is going on and then asks to see the boys PSP. We then see footage of an extremely violent video game for about a minute. I don't know if it is even a real game and I don't want to know. It was extremely violent and this boy treats it like he's walking down to the corner store for a lollipop. This scene seems insignificant taken in context with the bigger story in the film. However, to me it was one of the biggest statements this film makes. I know people that would brush that off just as cavalierly as the boy does in the movie, but I think there is a great amount of reality and truth to it. There are millions of children in this country having the same experience with violent video games as this child is in this movie. Yet, for the most part, our society is brushing it off as not a problem. There is a feeling that seems pervasive that these things don't affect our children. I think it is one of the biggest lies that Satan is pushing on us right now. It makes me sad to see people I know being duped by this way of thinking.
The final irony of this scene in the movie is that Dalton, the 'bad' guy holding hostages and robbing a bank actually seems to see a problem with this kids video game. Go figure.