If you had a time machine, would you go back and kill baby Hitler? This ethical dilemma, which has been around since practically right after WWII, has been argued for decades. The core idea it explores is whether people who are destined to do horrible things are moral aberrations in an otherwise functional society who, like a wedge on the railroad tracks, twist the course of events off track with calamitous results or, alternatively, if people are the product of the times in which they live, which argues that killing baby Hitler would be a meaningless gesture, as someone else would simply fill the vacancy his non-existence left.
This conundrum is related to the events of the film, as witnessed through the eyes of a man exposed to a mystery that only becomes clear over the course of his life. It starts in the late 80's when a string of random murders rocks Philadelphia. The main character, an ambitious young police officer named Locke, is one of the first to respond to a number of strange homicides perpetrated by a young black woman whom he accidentally kills while attempting to apprehend her. Before her death, she makes a number of comments that indicate knowledge of events she shouldn't have access to, leaving unanswered questions in his mind.
Despite the aura of mystery, life moves on for Locke until nine years later when the woman suddenly reappears, once again killing seemingly random people before disappearing yet again. Locke begins to suspect the mystery can only be explained with supernatural elements and becomes obsessed with solving it, despite the heavy toll on his personal life it takes.
The story jumps forward every nine years to show a single day in Locke's life. By the end of the third jump a little past the half way point the movie reveals the basic outline of what is driving the mysterious events, though it reserves a few of the surprises more personal to Locke for the final act. This explanation also explains a brief ominous scene at the very beginning of the movie.
After a few more time jumps that fill in the last pieces and add an action scene or two, the movie brings things to a mostly satisfying conclusion that wraps up the mystery and personal issues of Locke's life. The ending is a tad anti-climactic since there is no "bad" guy and the big surprise is just that a relationship mentioned earlier in the movie is mixed race which, if they intended that to be shocking, would have required the movie to be made four or five decades ago.
The movie does it's best to sell an ending that's billed as positive, although I saw echoes of a much darker implication, unintentional and all the more scary for it. The way the movies sells its ending (spoiler warning!), people from the future using time travel to kill white supremacists in the past whose ideas ultimately spark a new civil war, is by having a character ask Locke "what if you could stop the civil war?" All those untold thousands of deaths, all that suffering, all that division, just snuffed out by identifying and targeting a few individuals that were the key voices behind the secessionist movement. One hundred deaths for 600,000. Provided you're not overly concerned about that pesky "freedom of speech" stuff it's a bargain, right?
Except when you stop to consider where we were as a nation before the civil war. Much as it seems fait accompli now, the prevailing attitude in the union wasn't actually homogeneously anti-slavery. Many deplored it, certainly, but many held beliefs somewhere in between and would have been fine with it's continuation so long as they didn't have to see it or enforce the practice within the borders of their state. The confederacy and the civil war crystallized and hardened beliefs; it forced people who might have otherwise preferred not to pick a side.
I can't say for certain that without the civil war, civil rights would have been set back by decades or more, but I think there is at least an argument to be made that it might have. No one likes suffering and destruction, but a thing cheaply won does not have the same value as that which has been paid for with, to paraphrase Lincoln, "the solemn pride...to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom."
So I found the end a little chilling, certainly not for the stated goals that motivated the characters, but for the way it championed the use of a godlike power without a true understanding of the potential cost of that power, and for the idea that it's presented as a good thing that a small group of individuals, however well meaning, wielded that power over the entirety of mankind as judge, jury, and executioners unbeknownst to those whose lives they impacted.
Then again, maybe I'm just thinking too much about a movie that's just a fun little bit of what-if science fiction.
This conundrum is related to the events of the film, as witnessed through the eyes of a man exposed to a mystery that only becomes clear over the course of his life. It starts in the late 80's when a string of random murders rocks Philadelphia. The main character, an ambitious young police officer named Locke, is one of the first to respond to a number of strange homicides perpetrated by a young black woman whom he accidentally kills while attempting to apprehend her. Before her death, she makes a number of comments that indicate knowledge of events she shouldn't have access to, leaving unanswered questions in his mind.
Despite the aura of mystery, life moves on for Locke until nine years later when the woman suddenly reappears, once again killing seemingly random people before disappearing yet again. Locke begins to suspect the mystery can only be explained with supernatural elements and becomes obsessed with solving it, despite the heavy toll on his personal life it takes.
The story jumps forward every nine years to show a single day in Locke's life. By the end of the third jump a little past the half way point the movie reveals the basic outline of what is driving the mysterious events, though it reserves a few of the surprises more personal to Locke for the final act. This explanation also explains a brief ominous scene at the very beginning of the movie.
After a few more time jumps that fill in the last pieces and add an action scene or two, the movie brings things to a mostly satisfying conclusion that wraps up the mystery and personal issues of Locke's life. The ending is a tad anti-climactic since there is no "bad" guy and the big surprise is just that a relationship mentioned earlier in the movie is mixed race which, if they intended that to be shocking, would have required the movie to be made four or five decades ago.
The movie does it's best to sell an ending that's billed as positive, although I saw echoes of a much darker implication, unintentional and all the more scary for it. The way the movies sells its ending (spoiler warning!), people from the future using time travel to kill white supremacists in the past whose ideas ultimately spark a new civil war, is by having a character ask Locke "what if you could stop the civil war?" All those untold thousands of deaths, all that suffering, all that division, just snuffed out by identifying and targeting a few individuals that were the key voices behind the secessionist movement. One hundred deaths for 600,000. Provided you're not overly concerned about that pesky "freedom of speech" stuff it's a bargain, right?
Except when you stop to consider where we were as a nation before the civil war. Much as it seems fait accompli now, the prevailing attitude in the union wasn't actually homogeneously anti-slavery. Many deplored it, certainly, but many held beliefs somewhere in between and would have been fine with it's continuation so long as they didn't have to see it or enforce the practice within the borders of their state. The confederacy and the civil war crystallized and hardened beliefs; it forced people who might have otherwise preferred not to pick a side.
I can't say for certain that without the civil war, civil rights would have been set back by decades or more, but I think there is at least an argument to be made that it might have. No one likes suffering and destruction, but a thing cheaply won does not have the same value as that which has been paid for with, to paraphrase Lincoln, "the solemn pride...to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom."
So I found the end a little chilling, certainly not for the stated goals that motivated the characters, but for the way it championed the use of a godlike power without a true understanding of the potential cost of that power, and for the idea that it's presented as a good thing that a small group of individuals, however well meaning, wielded that power over the entirety of mankind as judge, jury, and executioners unbeknownst to those whose lives they impacted.
Then again, maybe I'm just thinking too much about a movie that's just a fun little bit of what-if science fiction.