Critical Moviegoers

By Claudia Paz Niño de Zepeda Alvear

Justice. What a beautiful and strange word. I am sure that while you are watching the news or reading the newspaper you have thought, at least once, about how unfair life can get, or about how injustice takes over daily life. But, have you ever thought about taking justice on your own hands? This is the main topic that the movie Kick-ass, released this year, takes into consideration for the development of the plot. This is the story of Dave Lizewski, a teenager who dreams about being a superhero, fighting against evil and having the attention and love of the girl he loves secretly. To achieve his objective, Dave decides to wear a green and yellow costume to hide his identity so he can go out every night, after school, to battle against criminals. He sees himself involved in a lot of dreadful situations because he lacks training and he does not know about weapons. Dave is a normal person who applies justice with his own methods. Is this the right path to take? Most of the times, I do not think so. I think that justice must be applied by a person who is not involved with the subject in discussion, but sometimes justice is not applied in a proper manner.

On one hand, I find Chilean justice very fascinating. This is not because I will suddenly decide to be a lawyer, but because I have seen in the news some very interesting law trials; for instance, some people are punished because they do not cut the grass outside their house, as it happened some years ago in Providencia, while other people, criminals who have stolen perhaps violently, are free to go out of jail two days after they are accused. Is justice well applied in such cases? I do not believe in that; I think that there are problems with laws that were written ages ago, which surface in what now are everyday cases and also, that there are some excellent lawyers, who are capable of saving the worst kind of criminals from jail. I think that both common sense and ethics are part of the game of justice.

On the other hand, there are difficult cases where a strong hand and a well organised mind are needed to take the best decision possible. Cases involving raping, murder, violation of children’s freedom and rights, etc, demand a clear opinion of somebody with power and wisdom. If this does not happen, if a judge does not have these qualities in him or her, the families involved with a case may take the worst decision ever: to take justice with their own hands, driven by blind rage and an indescribable lust for blood. Namely, this happened some months ago, here in Santiago, where people from certain neighborhood killed a man by hitting him hard, only because they thought he was looking at the girls who were playing in the street. He was in the wrong place, at the wrong time… and he died in the street, victim of the people who were looking for justice.

To summarise, justice is a serious issue that must not be taken lightly, all the facts must be considered and every hint of subjectivity must be left aside in order to achieve the best of judgments in a given situation. I think that justice must be applied seriously, knowing everything that is involved in the case to be able to take a good decision of punishment. By no means can justice be taken by your own hands, as Dave did in the movie Kick-ass. Feelings must not be mixed with concrete facts, as far as justice is concerned. But we must also pay attention to the measures that are taken; they are not always right for the case.