Valentine's Day, Violence, and The Kingsmen

Gray and I had an experience yesterday that has left me a bit unsettled and needing to write about it. There may be spoilers, so note the warning below.

We went out for Valentine's Day on a date (kids stayed with my folks -- woohoo!) and after a rather yummy lunch at a local Japanese teppanyaki style restaurant, we went to see a movie. It was one that I wanted to see and Gray wasn't super enthused about, but he was being really sweet and letting me pick the movie as a bit of a gift to me for Valentine's Day. Normally we'd compromise, but even then, that usually means a movie that is only sort of what I'd like to see instead of something I really want to see. Yesterday we decided to see the spy/secret agent movie The Kingsment: The Secret Service.

I really wish I had let Gray pick the movie or we'd compromised.

I absolutely love a good spy/secret agent movie and was fully expecting a movie with fun gadgets, guns (and some gun violence), pretty girls who fall for the lead, and perhaps an explosion or two with the hero saving the day in the end. Well, I definitely got all of that in this movie but it wound up being a horrible experience in the end. The first two-thirds of the movie were filled with witty one-liners, nods to old school spy/secret agent movies and TV shows, nifty gadgets, and some pretty cool choreographed fight scenes. There was Galahad (a secret agent played by Colin Firth), his protege Eggsy, a megalomaniac super villain (Samuel L. Jackson), and an evil double amputee henchwoman with very lethal prosthetics. The super villain's plot, when fully revealed, was the reason I wish we'd gone to see something else.

[If you are intent on seeing this, you may wish to stop reading now as there are spoilers ahead. I'll warn you though, it's really, truly not worth even the $5.75 we paid for the super matinee priced ticket.]

It was a particularly evil plot that involved using people's cell phones and wireless internet devices against them to produce a signal which caused them to suddenly feel an uncontrollable urge to kill the person nearest to them without any ability to stop. The villain tested this by activating the signal for a limited group of people who were at a worship service in a Christian church. The church was painted to be reminiscent of the hate-filled Westboro Baptist Church, so I think the implication was that these people suddenly killing themselves wouldn't be any particular loss (something that bothered me). Galahad had gone to investigate a lead at this church, was trying to blend in at the service when the signal was activated and frankly, all hell broke loose. It was an absolute blood bath and people were killed in every conceivable way -- many of them at the hands of the secret agent who was also under the influence of this signal and unable to stop himself. In the end, he was the only one left standing.

Gray and I were both totally horrified by that scene and to be honest, we ought to have left the theatre right then. I don't entirely know why we didn't. Perhaps we were both hoping that somehow it would get better. It didn't. It just got worse and worse. Once the "test" had been proved successful, the villain decided to start the countdown to when he would unleash this on the whole world. Of course, Galahad's organization, The Kingsmen, went after him to stop him. In the end, they were successful, but not before the signal caused lots of people to kill others or try to kill others.

One of the scenes they kept returning to again and again during the "the world is going crazy because of this signal" was of Eggsy's mom and baby sister who appeared to be about 2 years old (the same age as my GB). Eggsy got word to his mom to lock the baby in the bathroom and throw away the key. He was trying to protect his sister and his mom from the horrors of this thing in case they weren't able to stop it. She did as he asked, but once the signal started, she acted the same as anyone else who suddenly felt compelled to kill the nearest person and started trying to get through the door to kill her daughter. This bothered me more than I can possibly say. I sat there, so totally afraid for that baby that my heart was racing, I started crying and I was clutching Gray's hand so hard, I'm amazed he didn't get a bruise. In the end, the baby was okay, but it was very, very, very close.

Eggsy, along with another secret agent, wound up saving the day and saving most of mankind from certain death, but the victory felt so hollow after watching all of that. I told Gray that I was really enjoying the movie until that scene in the church. Until that point, it was a fun and kind of exciting spy movie. Unfortunately though, the director of the movie apparently decided that more gore and violence was a better move, but in the end, it just weakened the whole thing. I'm not a pacifist when it comes to entertainment, but there is a definite line that this director crossed.

Having studied the dramatic arts in college, I learned a rule about profanity in my playwriting class that I think applies to violence too: the use of profanity should always serve to develop the character/plot or convey an emotion that cannot be otherwise conveyed. In other words, profanity just for the sake of being profane is gratuitous and serves no purpose. The director could have chosen a different tactic when trying to convey how horrible and evil a plot this was and the total devastation it could wreak without so much blood, guts, and gore and such a constant and intense barrage of violence. The whole scene with the protege's mother and baby sister was absolutely unnecessary. When you break this rule with regard to violence, you run the risk of leaving your audience feeling more than a little bit emotionally bludgeoned too. Gray commented that he felt dirty after having watched it and I agreed with him. It bothered both of us so much that we wound up praying together after it and then going for ice cream to sort of soothe our nerves.

Some people might say that we're both a bit sensitive, but you know what? I'm okay with that. I hope that we never lose our sensitivity to that kind of thing. The world is so full of violence and horrific acts that even watching the news ought to make us feel sickened at times. I don't want to become desensitized to human pain. I don't want to normalize violence so much that it doesn't phase me or that it takes a whole new level of evil to stir my senses.

This experience has done more than just unsettle me. It has caused me to stop and take stock of some of my choices with regard to entertainment. In short, it has convicted me to give more consideration to things before consuming them. St. Paul tells the Ephesians this: 

"For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true." (Ephesians 5:8-9) 

I want to be light so that others may see the light of Him who is Goodness, Righteousness, and Truth in me.