The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

"I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men" - Isaac Newton, commenting on the 18th century ‘South Sea Bubble’ financial disaster. Later revealed he had invested and lost money.


Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” brought to mind some dialogue from a 1954 film noir movie:

Criminal: Now you listen to me cop I pay your salary.
Sgt. Friday: Alright sit down. I’m gonna earn it.
Criminal: You already have... the kinda money you make... what do they pay you to carry that badge around? 40 cents an hour?
Sgt. Friday: (quiet rage) You sit down!
The criminal sits.
Sgt. Friday: (sternly) That badge pays $464 a month. That’s what the job’s worth. I knew it when I hired on. $67.40 comes out for withholding. I give $27.84 for pension and $12 bucks for widows and orphans. That leaves me $356.76. That badge is worth $1.82 an hour. So mister you just settle back in that chair cause I’m gonna blow about 20 bucks of it right now.

This snippet from the decades old, forgettable, 88 minute “Dragnet” movie, has more heart than the three hours of Scorsese bacchanal. These two films might seem unrelated as they are different genres made in different eras. Actually they are both comic book examinations of professions; the former police work, the latter banking. The 1950s sketch of life in the LAPD is well crafted and gives a fun simulacrum of detective work. Scorsese's film is a badly executed hollow portrait of awful person which bares little resemblance to the financial services industry.  The success of the kitsch police thriller is simple. Sgt. Friday is entertaining. His pithy no-nonsense staccato verbal quips ooze the righteousness of someone who fails to be ruled by the dollar. Jordan Belfort, the central protagonist of “The Wolf of Wall Street, is a dreary money grabber who secretes a potent mixture of self-pity and arrogance. Note to Scorsese: good cartoon characters are good; bad cartoon characters are good; but pathetic cartoon characters are pathetic.

All hope that the director was going to create a realistic commentary on our current financial system evaporated in the first moments of Belfort’s appearance on Wall Street.  His boss takes the novice employee, played by Leonardo Dicaprio, to lunch at a high end restaurant on top of the World Trade Center on his first day on the job. (Full disclosure: I worked on Wall Street and was familiar with his boss).  I find this account of events to be unbelievable; but not as outlandish as what follows. This meal supposedly included bouts of cocaine sniffing and lengthy advice on masterbation, virility and ‘how to fleece clients’. Matthew McConaughey’s performance as the boss might have been recreated by any number of eighth grade drama students who were given the following instructions: DRUG ADDICT /WALL STREET MONEY GUY. At this point Belfort is an earnest teetotaler as the evil demons have yet to work their black magic.  This magic seems to have affected all the patrons of the restaurant because they fail to react as McConaughey leads Dicaprio in a chest pounding incantation that includes making gorilla snorts. Guess the crowd was used to it as McConaughey is a regular lunch customer. The only time I personally knew brokers to take long lunches was either to attend financial presentations or entertain clients; neither of which were daily occurrences. The essence of being a broker, especially in the days before cell phones, is to be chained to your desk while the market is open in order to facilitate customer orders. This garish caricature of Wall Street continues after our hero is laid off following the 1987 crash. His new gig was located in a low end strip mall on Long Island.  This ‘first day’ is even more implausible than his previous debut.  He picks up his phone for his very first sales call to at complete stranger and lands an enormous order. His co-workers fall silent. One of them exclaims: “How did you do that?!!!“ Maybe “so that’s why they call you Superman!” would have been more appropriate.

The most offensive dimension of these scenes is the portrayal of Belfort as a Horatio Alger-like innocent being led astray by the evil Wall Streeters. His post-crash job transition is portrayed as a natural step for someone who had secured a brokerage license and needed to continue to work in financial services.  There is a scene where he considers bringing his talent to another industry but his wife convinces him that Wall Street is where he belongs. To be clear: a decision to transition from a ‘legitimate’ brokerage apprenticeship to working in a penny stock ‘boiler room’ is the equivalent of a mainstream actor deciding to abandon broadway for pornography. Such an individual would probably know the difference between the two worlds and understand that joining one severely limits one’s chances of rejoining the other.  It is doubtful that the ‘real’ Belfort explained this to his doting wife who might have seen his penny stock career in a different light.

The film is based on Belfort’s story as portrayed in his best selling autobiography “Catching the Wolf of Wall Street”. Scorsese is impervious to any notion that the master con man is being disingenuous. Perhaps the fact that this was written while our hero was behind bars for fraud, amongst other felonies, might have given the director pause. It’s difficult to divine the Scorsese vision for this film. Current news is a grist-mill for dramatic material about Wall Street. The morning after seeing the film the following headline was in the New York Times: “Academics Who Defend Wall St. Reap Reward” - about professors hiding pro-business funding for their pro-business research. Incidentally the week before it was revealed that Warren Buffett made $25,000 a minute in 2013. Incidentally the academics yearlong toil, worth maybe four minutes of Mr. Buffett’s time, is paid via a salary rather than from investment returns. This means the teachers, and other working people, pay double the income tax rate as billionaires such as Buffett.  Despite the myriad of outrageous inequities, Mr. Scorsese feels a circus film about an unsympathetic clown is an intelligent way to showcase the shortcomings of Wall Street.

The director requires three hours to tell Belfort’s ponderous story. Early on we are treated to our hero snorting cocaine from the anus of a call girl before greeting his first wife who is patiently waiting at home. Much of the remaining two and a half hours oscillates between variations on the anus snort and passionate sales pitches. Once again kudos to Leonardo as his adrenaline filled rants, whether he was pushing stocks, downing whisky, hitting his wife.... were altogether convincing. A full third of this film is made up of the sales monologues.  The best salesman I ever knew was the fuller brush man who visited our house every month when I was a child. He sold various soaps and brushes. Dramatically speaking he would have been a more interesting subject which, in turn, should give a strong indication as to the weakness of the theatrical backbone of this movie. As a twelve year old the drug and sex orgies might have had some appeal. As a middle aged movie goer these carnal flashes have the sustaining power of fiery car crashes or exploding buildings. Despite being saddled with playing this absurd character, Leonardo manages to deliver moments of brilliance. There is a scene in the lobby of a waspy country club where he summons the seemingly lost art of physical slapstick comedy. He mimicks the effects on the human body after downing a handful of quaaludes. One felt transported back to the golden era of silent films where body movement was paramount. Scorsese himself, despite his fateful decision to bring this film to life, has some interesting moments. Noone outdoes this director in capturing the swagger of outcast, underclass New York dudes; think of the men featured in “Mean Streets” and “Goodfellas”. They are repulsive losers and yet there is a strange dignity that keeps the audience glued to every donut chomp and insipid comment. In addition he expanded his brilliant voice over exposition, which often includes a freeze frames, to include Belfort actually speaking directly to the audience. (A nod to ‘House of Cards’?)  The supporting cast managed to outshine the big name stars.  Every fat roll of Jonah Hill exudes a feckless perversion that leads the audiences to wonder what will come out when he reaches for his pockets: a crackpipe? a pen? his penis? Margot Robbie shines as the second wife. Her blond locks boldly proclaiming, this has nothing to do with Farah Fawcett - it’s a classy hairdo. The ‘Lawng Iwland’ accent was pitch perfect evoking the brassy sparkle of McMansions whose interiors evoke Versailles via Ralph Lauren. Another highpoint amidst the drawn-out sex and screaming is the taciturn FBI man Kyle Chandler.  He brings a steely calm to all the endless visual indigestion.  Unfortunately Scorsese ends the film with a odd but revealing sequence. The hero G-man, who flaunts his proud working man credentials, seems overcome with the dinginess of his subway commute. Meanwhile our hero is out of prison and racking up money with his newest venture “Straight Line Persuasion System”, a course on training salesmen. Chandler’s melancholy is rooted in the injustice of life. The director seems to forget that our FBI man is an exalted untouchable in a world of mammon.

Having the G-man feel his life’s work unrewarding compared to Belfort’s material riches shows the intellectual dishonesty of the story. Scorsese has always had a dark vision - probably best illustrated in his cameo as the misogynistic passenger in Taxi Driver who verbally fantasizes about butchering his wife. “The Wolf of Wall Street” shows that he’s finally crossed Kurtz’s line of sanity. What is the audience to make of the endless minuscule documentation of Belfort’s debauchery?; or the never-ending sequences of frenzied speeches to the duped customers/employees? Belfort is the master persuader and perhaps his most prized victim is Scorsese himself. The master salesman fooled the master film director into giving him a starring role. The truth is that the lead protagonist is merely a grotesque worth documenting in a footnote about fringe excess. The real villains are the operators who successfully integrate themselves into polite society. People such as Ken Starr the notorious Ponzi schemer who targeted celebrity clients; including MARTIN SCORSESE. Such figures are nowhere to be found in “The Wolf of Wall Street”. It is hard to know how much Scorsese personally lost in his dealings with Starr but it is interesting that he would decide to focus his artistic gaze on Jordan Belfort. Unfortunately  the choice is rooted in the “madness” of anger. It is easy to understand the rage of being taken by a slick suited Wall Street con man. It is also understandable that discussing the fact that real wages haven’t risen in the US since the 1970s might not appear as dramatic red meat. Ironically the fury of our current political divide rests in the bedrock of this income inequality. Scorsese overwrought need to definitively nail this towering bad guy is a personal revenge statement rather than a universal story. “The Wolf of Wall Street” fails to give answers to the raging crowds of Tea Partiers or 99 percenters. The lack real insight into our current centralization of wealth makes this film a private artist statement that has little resonance. Mr. Scorsese self righteously points the finger at this monster while the far more pernicious attitudes are unchallenged. Four years on from the 2008 financial crisis there have been no substantive reforms to address the concentration of wealth and power in our financial institutions.  To quote former labor secretary Robert Reich repeating Justice Brandeis: “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.”  A vast majority of people are feeling immobility rooted in economic stagnation while a select few enjoy exponential financial success. Jordan Belfort is a ridiculous sideshow. A charismatic hustler who happened to land in the financial sector rather than health care (Richard M. Scrushy, HealthSouth Corp), energy production (Jeffrey Skilling, Enron) or media (Robert Maxwell, Mirror Group).  Their stories might hint at institutional trouble, but it always becomes about the specific brand of sociopathology. In short, good businessmen are alike; crooked businessmen are crooked in their own fashion. Conflating the individual with the vast behemoth of the industry might lead to the wrong conclusions about a remedy. Wall Street’s problems are not rooted in hookers and quaaludes.

The post movie Belfort is currently hawking his “Straight Line Persuasion System”. This training advice kit for salesman has a website (http://usa.jordanbelfort.com/) which asks the question: Can You Really Use The Wolf of Wall Street’s Sales Tactics to Ethically Persuade People And Make Money? (His emphasis) He is also shopping a reality TV show featuring himself. Belfort makes me crave the comic book villains of yesteryear who were less pathologically tiresome. Creeps who didn’t turn their depraved egocentric criminality into another business. As Scorsese shows these people can get under your skin and into your head. Even the FBI man wondered if he wasn’t stupid for simply cashing in and not worrying. If they can get to Chandler and Scorsese... are we all next? Where have you gone Joe Friday, our nation turns it’s lonely eyes to you. Perhaps Jack Webb could be hologrammed into this years coming Oscar ceremony. He could approach the microphone in a simple. ill-fitting, off-the-rack tuxedo. “Thank you members of the Academy. I wasn’t the most famous actor or the best paid... but I wouldn’t trade places with a movie mogul or a superstar. I tried to do my job well. I got paid fairly. I looked out for the other guy... it might seem corny but.... (pause, clears his throat)  And this years Oscar for missing an important opportunity: Martin Scorsese, director, “The Wolf of Wall Street”.

American Hustle (2013)

Do the Hustle


The Abscam affair of the late 1970s, in which several American politicians were convicted of taking bribes, gave birth to the expression: “money talks, bullshit walks”. These famous words were uttered by a Congressman being surreptitiously filmed while receiving a suitcase filled with $50,000 in cash. Ironically this phrase is never spoken in David O. Russell’s fictionalized account of the scandal titled, “American Hustle”.  The missing catchphrase is the raison d’etre for the central protagonists, a romantically involved con-artist couple. These people eat and breath the bottom line while carrying on a strange attachment which undercuts their transaction based world-view.  Their lives are tested when they come under the scrutiny of a FBI agent whose motto might be “power talks, bullshit walks”.  A tortured love triangle ensues set amidst the gritty “pre-Atlantic City ‘boom’/post NYC financial crisis ‘bust’” milieu of the Big Apple, Long Island and the Garden State. As someone who grew up in that area at that time I can vouch for the authenticity of the costuming and set-design. The acting was also superb. It is odd that such a finely crafted would fail.... but one leaves the theater with an odd feeling of missed opportunity.  “American Hustle” is merely one of the best films this year.

The first half hour was a personal ‘trip down memory lane’. My exuberance might be clouded by a wistful fondness for era which is seen by others as a fashion and cultural nadir. The movie opens with wide lapel suited Christian Bale meticulously creating a comb-over hairdo to hide his baldness. The central protagonists are introduced, complete with repulsive clothes and tortured relationships. Bale is jealous of Bradley Cooper’s hold over Amy Adams. Cooper is envious of Bale’s ability to read people. Adams is angry about being trapped and beholden to both men. The plot is revealed in wonderful Scorsese voice-over combined with just the right amount of exposition mixed with mysteries waiting to unfold.  There is a tension that propels the audience into the seedy world of cons, cops, politicians and the mob.  It explores the root word of the term ‘con man’: ‘confidence’; which in turn leads us to “trust”; which in turn leaves to the very far-removed ‘love’.  At heart this film is a romantic comedy. This turns out to be a problem as Adams, who delivers an exquisite performance, is opaque despite being the emotional linchpin of the story.  The movie drifts off course immediately after the couple is busted.  Cooper is an ambitious cop with an insatiable desire for success which in his world translates to overseeing high profile arrests. Despite his convincing portrayal, his role highlights the weakness in the characterization of Adams. Cooper plants the seeds of mistrust between the partners in crime. This leads to an extremely detailed discussion between Bale and Adams about ‘where they stand’. In witnessing these emotional negotiations the audiences channels the embarrassing voyeurism of eavesdropping on a teenage break-up or even worse; a marital impasse.  It is dramatically unfulfilling and a pale substitution for a measure of their bond. This unfortunate scene repeats itself as Adams establishes a tie with Cooper. These complicated  expository monologues are rooted in the lack of delineation in Adams’ character. Ironically the template for a successful rendering can be found in her love rival Jennifer Lawrence, who is the legal spouse of Bale.

There is no need for a handbook to understand Bale’s marriage.  Lawrence possesses a charm that showcases her beauty and ugliness. The hideous narcissism intertwined with the childlike callowness is a perfect match for Bale’s need to be a family man and felon.  Their initial attraction is as understandable as their eventual repulsion. This is best shown in one of the last scenes of them together. Her astounding carelessness has led to Bale’s near execution. There is a confrontation in which Lawrence stridently gains the upper hand by reading excerpts from a self-help best seller. Bale is overcome by bewilderment and defeat. This leads to an apology: FROM BALE. He is sorry that her stupidity almost killed him. He means it despite its illogical. This is the genius of Lawrence’s performance. She also manages summons this startling ability to dominate her opponents when facing Adams.  In the midst of receiving a well deserved dressing down, in which Adams touches on her reckless drinking and inappropriate behavior, Lawrence kisses her and walks off.  Adams is right, but Lawrence wins. That small moment touches on the larger problem of the Adams character: what does she want? Is her anger at Lawrence rooted in fear of blowing the scam and ruining herself? or destroying Cooper? or out of jealousy over Bale? Or both? Or none of the above? All the exposition about her being genuinely attached to Bale while feigning love with Cooper clouds her actions.  This is a film about trust that is tied to love. Unfortunately Adams is almost too perfect at her character’s craft with the ironic result of the audience losing ‘confidence’. Once again this is a pitch perfect rendering. Adams played it as it ‘like a pro’. Romantic comedies, however, demand vulnerable  love struck protagonists. Her fierce opaqueness forces the audience to see her love interests as marks, rather than partners.

The same puzzling professionalism plagues Cooper’s G-man. His ambition seems embedded in every strand of his meticulously coiffed head of permed hair. Is he a sociopath who is incapable of friendship and love? The brief view of his home life, featuring a dominating mother and an ignored fiancee, once again raises questions of character rather than giving the audience insight into his motives. His banter with his beleaguered boss, the comedian Louis CK, is also ambiguous.  CK was a poor choice of a foil as his performance failed to have enough range to deliver the expectations he had of his underling. Did he see Cooper as merely a troublesome employee? a potential friend to mentor? Cooper returns the favor by being a friend and foe simultaneously. This is a hallmark of professional relationships but in a story about love and trust, it works against the audience’s ability to empathize with Cooper. Is he merely working the opposing characters or does he really care?

David O. Russell has a writing credit in addition to being the director. This work seemed plagued by overdrawing and over thinking. No doubt the ‘real life’ Bale had a side business in the fraudulent art market - but how does this serve the overall story? How does this help render Bale’s character? Why was his attachment to the NJ politician so important that he would actually make a face to face confession in his house in front of the mayor’s wife and children? The film firmly establishes Bale as someone who spent a career casually stealing from other family men. The unanswered questions stem from knowing too much and failing to hone down actual events into a concise story. This was a 100 minute tale and yet the end result clocks in nearly 20 minutes over the two hour mark. If Russell had exhibited the discipline to focus the narrative this film might have touched our heart rather than wowed our senses. The virtuosity of the production is amazing but the characters seemed weighted with unspoken off-script burdens. This might have been a fascinating multi-hour cable show or a less ambitious shorter feature. Unfortunately the current length renders it a splendid meandering journey. In the end we are left with characters whose actions are supported by the need to deliver a tidy finish, rather than a ‘real’ ending. It is too ‘real’ to be a light romantic comedy; yet too unreal to be a serious drama. 

The ambiguousness can be intriguing, Adams and Cooper are fun to watch. It would have been more entertaining if Russell had abandoned exposition and explanation, for action.  Less complicated talk about relationships and emotions would have lifted all boats; including Bale’s. Deliver an unabashed romantic comedy and forget all the history of what really a happened. Think of Lawrence: She is an insolent drunk with nothing to say. She spends her time burning toast, cleaning,  having sex, complaining, breaking her fingernails,  shopping and spewing nonsense.... but she is utterly captivating. She even manages to upstage  Bale, who delivers a consummate performance of the mirror image of Horatio Alger. Let David Mamet and Thomas Mann gives us the mind of con men. This movie hints at confidence men in those brief moments without tricks or confidence;  think Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in the original “Thomas Crown Affair”. In order to care we must trust, in some measure, that everything isn’t a transaction. This superbly rendered feature plays the audience into believing in its wonder. Unfortunately the distinct parts are better than the sum. In the end, it doesn’t add up.  It’s a good film pretending to be great. True passion talks, bullshit walks.

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

There Will Be Drugs


“Dallas Buyers Club” is a buddy film with explosive political undertones exploring class, sexuality and the pernicious overreach of government.  The central protagonist is a roughneck homophobic bigot who pairs up with a gay transvestite male prostitute.  The movie is set during the early stages of the AIDS epidemic where there were no effective treatments for the disease. Their mission is to discover a remedy that will keep them alive. This dynamic duo decide to take on the FDA, the DEA, the IRS and the established medical establishment. Goliath wins a pyrrhic victory as the two David’s are vindicated by history. Strangely the film left a uncomfortable emptiness towards the central character, played by Matthew McCounaughey. The filmmakers shaped a tale of amoral outcasts transforming into solid ‘do-gooders’ in the face of pure evil.  In the end the cartoonish characterization of the ‘enemy’ undercut the ‘goodness’ of the protagonists. The film, despite some outstanding qualities, fails to evoke the pathos appropriate for this material. We are left with a long-winded ‘wild story’; instead of a heartfelt examination of our recent past.

McCounaughey and Jared Leto deliver standout performances which are worth the price of admission. McConaughey embodies the uniquely American rage of someone whose property has be violated. One can smell the body odor as he bunches his fingers into a fist or reaches for a gun or a bottle of discount liquor. He has been invaded by a foreign virus. His friends turn against him and label him queer - akin to being a leper/pedophile in the setting of a Southern 1980s trailer park. Those white coated professionals at the hospital are marginally more helpful... but he’s not taking a death sentence lying down. They give him 30 days... he gives them the finger. Eventually he metaphorically partners with Leto whose charm overcomes McCounaughey’s visceral hatred. Leto enables McCounaughey to trade his fists for lawyers and his clunker for a Cadillac. McCounaughey becomes a genuine jet-setter and spans the globe in search of drugs to hawk in his home-grown AIDS clinic; which is run from a seedy motel.  This is all based on a actual story and it illustrates the fierce power of the American entrepreneurial spirit.  An alcoholic, sex-addict oil-rig electrician with little formal education and even less grace manages to become a quasi-legal international health clinic operator for disenfranchised male homosexuals.  The grim reaper’s blade gives us all focus. In McConaughey’s case it becomes the equivalent of Popeye’s spinach.  Our anti-hero is ‘loaded for bear’. All the private drug companies, white collar professionals and government regulators should take cover.

Prior to his contracting HIV McCounaughey’s life revolves around hookers, gambling and alcohol.  The writer/director spend an immense amount of screen time chronicling his debauchery. There is an unconvincing moment at his job where McCounaughey calls an ambulance for a immigrant worker who is caught in the mesh gears of the oil rig equipment. His co-workers are too scared being fired for exposing illegal workers on the jobsite. McCounaughey’s burst of humanity is a contrived way of convincing the audience that everything they’ve experienced up to this point merely masks someone who is concerned with social justice. This hidden ‘good guy’ rears his head again after being ostracized by his friends. There is an encounter in a super-market with one of his former wing men. McCounaughey physically forces the ex-buddy to make nice with Leto; the new transvestite side-kick. Once again these acts of goodness contrast with the hardscrabble survivor turned entrepreneur. It’s ironic that a brilliant performance would be disingenuous. Unfortunately McConaughey’s wonderful rendering of the character is saddle with a director and writer who can never fully embrace the man.  Leto’s struggles are real. He is a drug addict shamed by his family. His encounter with his respectable bank-manager father is one of the few genuine emotional notes in the film. Leto steals the movie because his character is built on struggle rather than set-piece scenes that evoke emotions that are absent in the actual protagonist. The writer/director wasted McConaughey’s talent with gratuitous, outlandish strutting; rather than a heartfelt portrayal of a disenfranchised, under-class survivor.

The filmmakers believed the outrageousness of McConaughey’s rise was the hook for the story. The opposite is true. The most fascinating aspect of his journey is his focus and ability to adopt lifestyles and allies. All his vices are exchanged for a healthy lifestyle, copious research in medical journals and an alliance with white collar businessmen of various sexual orientations. The film should have exhibited less whoring for more practice in adopting his new persona.  In coming back from Mexico after his conversion he dresses as a priest. This hints at strategizing that was never exhibited in the script. This absence also haunts his oversees journeys. How did he figure out how to get around Japanese drug export regulations?  When did he suddenly realize lawyers were preferable to bail bondsmen? The journey is bogged down in hollow encounters with one-dimensional bad guys. The portrayal of the medical community and drug companies was flat.  It might be accurate to say that the makers of AZT put profit over people’s lives. Dramatically it is more interesting to draw an equivalence between McCounaughey and the drug companies. What about HIS actions. Given his track record it seems reasonable to assume he was struggling to save his life and make money rather than being just.  The film devolves into a simplistic story of good guys with noble intentions vs. bad guys who only care about money and power. Fronting the characters who wear black hats are the two the doctors McCounaughey encounters in the hospital. The love interest, who ends up with a white hat, is uninteresting and the leading doctor is leaden.  The sundry bureaucrats were also cartoonish. The end result  is a series of forgettable stand-offs where McConaughey’s is defiant and unrealistic. Believability would have fueled empathy and a sense of discomfort about our real world heroes and villains. In the end we are left with a movie ending coupled with a movie hero.  The audience is left in the small world of the big screen. This story should have provoked thoughts about our contemporary American landscape where the rising entrepreneurs class meshes with entrenched powerful government and private sector interests.  This film might have shed light on the ambiguousness of being successful.  Had McCounaughey prevailed - would he have been a hero? or something else.


In “The Kings Speech” an unorthodox outsider produces an effective treatment for speech pathology while being shunned by the polite society of the medical establishment.  Ironically this drama seems to be the base template for “The Dallas Buyers Club”. The filmmakers might have sought inspiration from “There Will Be Blood”, a harrowing drama about an oil field entrepreneur who rises to the top. This is a story about a man who will “drink your milkshake” rather than cure your illness. Flannery O’Connor exhibits a keen insight into the motivation for these types of anti-heroes. The killer in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”  muses over the body of a grandmother he has just executed: ““She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” Unfortunately the writer and director lack O’Connor’s knowledge of hardscrabble Southern life and American entrepreneurs. They mistake McCounaughey for being good. He is hideously determined American individualist with a gun to his head.  Never underestimate their ability to conquer. They’re very productive people. They do great things.... but they also want your milkshake. Dramatically speaking, this is fertile ground.... but not when you pretend that doctors on TV are real doctors.  Noone wants to buy snake oil.... but everyone loves watching a snake oil salesman.