I just finished watching this peculiar movie that touches upon so many things behavioural. In short, it is a long bank robbery. Or is it?
The premises are summarized as a cop who enforces the law too well without exception and who does everything he is ordered to his best of his abilities, who is then given the role of a bank robber in a police simulation...
Watch By The book here
As the robbery unfolds, the line between simulation and real robbery gets blurred easily from the viewers point of view. And it takes the character something like " if I were a real robber" to get back to the simulation situation. In fact, the the police is trying everything by the book as well, following procedures as if the a real robbery happened. The hostages are behaving naturally like real hostages as well after some resistance were crushed.
What is most interesting is the cop turned pretend robber's character: a righteous cop who needs to be a thorough thief. It may be because of my current state of mind but it is pretty much a question to the audience to me. What if you are given free reign to act out your unlawful repressed desire ?
It is very tense to watch the character maintain both his thief and cop logic, the thief doing his best to evade the police, and his cop self justifying what the thief was doing:
For example, the thief did not yield to his mother's plea to surrender. Accused of not behaving like a real thief, he indicated that his mother did not shed a singe tear, since she knew he was a cop. Hence the thief was not moved and did not surrender.
Although I hope this kind of character exists, one that can maintain its righteous belief and orientation, it was very surprising to see that the thief character did not take over, armed with rifle, money and free escape.
It is labelled as comedy, but one that is a serous comedy, asking some valid questions.
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