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*VERY LONG/SPOLIERS*
"It's very difficult to tell when Mr. Whitacre is telling the truth."
Watching Mark spin his webs is a lot like watching a little kid playing mind games with his parents. He's really a master of word-games, a real lord of lying, and he really has made lying his art-form, not unlike Holden Caulfield, actually. And that's why this movie is so funny and fun to watch, I've watched it a bunch of times, and it's basically because of Mark, and how loveably immature he is.
As for the broader picture, well, the world is very corrupt, and people know that, but it's still very different from how people think it is. It's a different kind of corrupt. Take two examples:
First, a big-shot from the company, Mick Andreas, talking with his cronies after the big FBI raid. He's very confident: he says, basically, nothing will come of it. It will be 'a ten year thing for the lawyers' but it wouldn't inconvience them '...maybe a fine. I'm telling you that's all this will be.' The average guy's gut reaction will be, I think--yeah, it's all fixed, you know, the government, the lawyers, the big business, yeah, they've got it all worked out, it'll be nothing, maybe a fine. Well, Mick Andreas goes to jail.
And again: Mark and his wife Ginger (who's very supportive of her husband, and pretty well looked after by him too) are on TV, talking about how Mark allegedly got ruffed up by a couple thugs who told him to keep quiet about things. Mark--who routinely worsens his position by talking to the press when he should keep his mouth shut, and who says at one point, "it feels good to talk"-- now blames his current problems on Brian Shepard, one of the guys with the FBI he used to work with when he was a co-operating witness. Mark tells the reporter who's interviewing him (or whom he's using to get an interview) that Brian Shepard/the FBI are to blame for all his troubles, and implies that they sent the mafia goons to ruff him up. His wife Ginger adds, "people need to understand--that the FBI is the same thing (as the mafia)". Brian Shepard is watching all this on TV, in civilian clothes, in some sort of diner. He looks disappointed; he can tell it's all a lie. The audience does too: Mark scuffed up his own clothes, and then told his wife that he got attacked, like a little kid inventing a story as to why he didn't do his homework.
It's hard to generalize, but basically, people are as corrupt as ever, but people are also not really convinced by people's lame excuses as to why they're corrupt. For example, Mark ineptly and ineffectively tries to explain away his theft of millions of dollars by saying that everyone else at the company was doing it too--even after previously protraying himself as the "white hat" because he was helping the FBI shoot down fellow co-workers he didn't like... Amusingly, Mark even told co-workers that he did like that the raid was coming, and when the FBI find out about it, and the agents, Brian and Bob, who are running him, confront him about it: Bob Herndon sternly tells Mark, brushinging aside his lame excuses, "You know that what you did in our eyes was wrong. It was supposed to be a secret." Mark often finds that he's fooling no-one, and yet, he is, at the same time, often given something more like indulgent coddling than punishment. Brian ends the conversation on a lame note, by reminding him that Mark has to get his own lawyer, and not rely on one provided for, and paid for, by the company. Mark replies irritably, "I know about the lawyers, Brian!" and it sounds not unlike a child arguing with an over-protective mother.
People are just as corrupt as ever, but also alot less satisfied with the lame excuses of yesteryear: maybe my favorite example is when Mark's second (or wait, third, no wait, fourth) lawyer, a real hack, who Mark likes, tells government representatives that Mark "has tapes that the government doesn't want us to hear"--as if the Department of Justice guys weren't, on some level, "the government"--and that he has a letter from the guy's shrink "which exonerates my client of all wrong-doing." Too bad it was a forged letter.
Explaining all of it makes it sounds painful, because it's a messed-up world, but it's pretty funny watching it unfold, especially through the eyes of an artful liar, who spends most of time hanging out with other liars....like the hotshot lawyer who first finds out about Mark's theft/fraud, which he uses to distract the government from his own clients and their own, equally real, theft and fraud. Interestingly, he claims to have "sworn testimony" from a company Mark had received a contract from that they had never received the contract, and that the signature was a forgery. ("He's a fucking forger!" Mick Andreas had said in mock-surprise, as though he were a "white hat" himself.) But later, it is mentioned that this company (it sounded like "Nordcron Kinney", although I've not seen how it's spelled) was a shell company created by Mark--well, he had one of his friends create it--so they could issue phony invoices that could be collected on, and, via money laundering, funnelled back to Mark and his family. So, if the company did not exist, and did not have any real employees, how did the hotshot lawyer get his "sworn testimony" that the invoice was fake?
And let's not forget another very interesting scene, this one between Shepard and Herndon and their FBI superiors, after it's been revealed that Mark was stealing money from his company while he was working with the FBI to prove that his company was engaged in fraud. (The hotshot lawyer claimed that this had happened "with the full knowledge and complicity" of the agents, even though he had no idea if they did know or not, and in fact, they had no idea.) The FBI brass say, basically, it's not if you guys knew or not, it's why didn't you know? Herndon dismisses this--the only thing that matters is whether there was fraud in the company. No, he's told, because now they're investigating the informant, not the company; Whitacre stole money, so he breached his agreement with the government. The agents seem to think that they're all falling for a trap being laid for them, and Herdon asks bitterly, "Who's counting the money over there if they can lose a couple million for a few years, and then find it in a couple of hours?"--which is, on one level, very perceptive, and yet also indicative of a sort of tunnel vision--it's the company's fault, because we got evidence against them (even if it was with our tainted guy), while it can't be our guy's fault because we got good evidence from him and we know him personally (even if we didn't screen him properly). Also, Shepard asks jadedly "I thought the FBI never hung a witness out to dry?" to which he is answered, "He's not a witness anymore; he's a target." Which is, on one level, exactly how people normally act when betrayed, and on another level--it's a bureaucrat playing with words.
That might sounds confusing, but you don't have to work everything out, unless you're a nut like me who's seen it fifty times. It's really a fun movie to watch, not least because of Matt Damon's really fucking amazing performance.
"I know you're trying to protect your friend Mark...but your story doesn't seem true."
"You're right. It's not true."
......................~~~~~
"But Joseph did NOT...."
"You're right. It's not true."
Lately, I've been thinking even worse of Matt Damon than I make it my habit it do.
It's not possible to explain in prose.
The new buildings have a quality of 'collapsing' in them, no matter how sturdy they are, because they are really *old* buildings, and not the good old kind....
"Here live the blind
who believe what they see
and the deaf
who believe what they hear."
And a little fool, characteristic of his country.
(How unfortunate are they, in a way, who *do* the work-- they are not like those others, who *said* that they did it....)
"....roll after roll
length after length
in woodchip wallpaper...."
Roll after roll after goddamn fucking roll.
"lone tenants stand around
observing the walls with frowns"
And they are so poor that they drive expensive German cars, having put Gogol out on the streets, and Mozart in an early grave.... because even poor folk make art, and East Berliners.
"searching row by row
looking for printing and spelling mistakes
they couldn't even decipher their own names"
Sometimes Schnicklgruber, sometimes.... *Schindlerism*!
And deaf to the words that only the fey folk can write....
("One two three four five six seven,
All good children go to heaven.")
........ And, and, and.....
No! Because! because! because!
(No! Because-- because you must not take their advice! Because, because, because! Because-- that! THAT!)
..... And.....
"....here are stored errors, which belong to the firm
and with which they tile the floors
upon these none may tread."
Crimes, "for", somebody a bit like you, maybe.... and about which you may nothing say, man.
(Watch the commercial. Shut up. It's all for you-- God damn you! Even I don't like you, what do you think any-body else would care, if it weren't for me! Do you think that the East-Berliners, eh?)
(What kindness!)
"here lives the architect
immersed in his plan of
this building crammed with ideas
it stretches from funda- to firmament
and from it`s foundations to the firm."
Smiling exactly like the American who has oft been to Netherfield Park.
(Such innocence!)
".... for better orientation."
What! We just want better orientation!
(And what could be wrong with THAT!)
And, then, friend, let me tell you what he did....
And then.... here is what you must have done.... or God save you....
("My name is Patton Oswalt, and I'm extremely pissed at you right now, you filthy little liar....")
Lately, I've been thinking even worse of Matt Damon than I make it my habit it do.
People have a way of leading you to who they are.... they make lists....
And, in Illinois, right-- It's not even as bad there.
Maybe they should have called it, 'Downfall'.
If you really think about that, you might learn something upsetting.
(WHY DO YOU KEEP LYING.)
(9/10)
