This
node has a very
long title.
The guy who may as well already be dead and therefore doesn't care about the consequences of his actions and is able to move with perfect freedom for the remainder of what will likely be a tragically short life.
We should all be familiar with this guy -- he's
ubiquitous. He is the simplest character to formulate for any sort of action film: virtually any amount of mayhem or borderline
psychosis can be attributed to him. He is the stranger with
nothing to lose. Often, he has recently had his family wiped out:
The Punisher. Occasionally, he is a soldier trapped behind enemy lines:
Rambo 2. On a few occasions, he is even someone who is aware of their inherent
fatality and is striving forward with a
fuck it all attitude:
Fight Club. Now and again, he's someone so
disillusioned that he's willing to toss his
moral compass out the door:
Falling Down. Sometimes, a debt of sorts is owed which forces the hero to sacrifice morality and society:
La Femme Nikita.
The
common theme in these characters is that they don't care if they
live or die. They have discovered they will die, either through circumstance or
deductive reasoning. This discovery has driven them to go completely against the rules of
society and attempt to
live -- either in the sense that they are
surrounded by the
enemy or in the sense that they have never properly "lived", but rather have existed by
going through the motions. These people are all
starting over with a fresh slate -- the
social mores have ceased to apply to them, and these heroes
revel in it.
In Hollywood, these guys are often characterised by their
lethal habits. It helps bring out the
mortality issue if your hero is a
chainsmoker, a heavy drinker, a drug addict or a member of the
USMC. These are the sort of people who think
smoking is cool and who can down a bottle of
tequila without a wince.
Hemingway created guys like this -- guys in need of a war. To some degree, they mesh with the
Fascistic Ideal, which is really just the
hyper-extension of machismo.
If you watch for them, you can't help but see them.