This week I took advantage of Orange’s 2-4-1 generosity to act like an unemployed Milwaukee truck driver looking for love: I went out for pizza, watched Law Abiding Citizen and drank soda out of a cup that could also serve as a baby bath.
Now, just in case you are in any doubt, Law Abiding Citizen – a crime thriller starring Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler, directed by F Gary Gray – is stupid. Really, really stupid. I’m talking lick-your-fingers-and-stick-them-in-a-plug-to-check-the-electricity-is-on stupid. If this film were a president, it would be choking on a pretzel.
In this tale of revenge, legal loopholes and complex detonation devices there were moments of terrifying moral relativism:
Detective Dunnigan: “What about his human rights?”
Nick Rice: “Fuck his human rights”
and some quite jaw-droppingly clunky Christian American propaganda:
Mayor of Philadelphia [while contemplating the murder of her entire legal office]: “That’s it, get me the Bible”
But most of all, it taught me some staggeringly useful things about psychopaths. To whit:
1. They Eat Steaks
Hitler may have been a vegetarian, Pol Pot may have been vegan and Charles Manson may have believed in Animal Rights, but the simple truth is that psychopaths eat steaks. Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs and Clyde Shelton in Law Abiding Citizen both taught me that the meaty off cut is far deadlier than the sword.
Lesson for Life: If your date orders a T-bone steak in a restaurant, either run like crazy or shoot them in the head.
2. They have Bad Hair Cuts
“It was just depressing to look in the mirror and see that haircut,” said Javier Bardem on filming the slow burn psychopath thriller No Country For Old Men. Depressing indeed, but an important lesson in psychopath-spotting. Anton Chigurh, like Jack Torrance in The Shining, taught us that the bowl cut is the hairy hallmark of emotionless, deranged killers.
Lesson for Life: If your mother cut your own hair as a child, then she was probably grooming you for a life of high pressure murders and lonely psychosis. Run like crazy or shoot her in the head.
3. They Have Soft Voices:
I would love to meet Gerard Butler’s voice coach. Because he was clearly told that in order to swap a Scottish accent for an American accent in Law Abiding Citizen you “just have to sort of lisp a bit. Talk out of the side of your mouth. Like you’ve had a stroke, yeah?” A bit like Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, actually, but quieter.
From Tom Ripley in Talented Mr Ripley, to Hannibal Lecter, to Jonathan Doe in Se7en, you can be pretty sure that the soft-voiced man is probably the one with blank-eyed murder in mind. They may even, judging from Blowfeld in Dr No, be a little bit camp.
Lesson for Life: Margaret Thatcher is almost certainly a psychopath. If someone whispers to you on the bus, run like crazy or shoot them in the head.
4. They Limp
Noah Cross in Chinatown and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood have taught me that a dicky leg is basically tantamount to a blood-soaked apron, a dripping knife and an abnormal amygdala (that’s the part of the brain in charge of emotional recognition and aggression. Do keep up)
Lesson for Life: If your friend starts using a walking stick, it’s time to run like crazy or shoot them in the head.
5. They wear suits
Pinkie in Brighton Rock? Patrick Batemen in American Psycho? Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas? Reservoir Dogs? Do these examples mean nothing to you?
Lessons for Life: Saville Row is the deadliest street in London. If a previously chatty, talkative colleague starts coming in to work in a suit and stares for long periods in to the corners of the room, run like crazy, or shoot them in the head.
Now, I know I have missed out a whole synchronised swimming team of psychopaths here. But that, my friends, is where you come in.
What has film taught you about psychopaths? And who are your examples?
Nell Frizzell
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