Maybe Revenge Isn’t So Sweet

This entry will be short (thank goodness, you say!). I wrote the last entry sometime last week about The Count of Monte Cristo and The Italian Job, and then the sermon at my church on Sunday happened to be about relationships. The pastor touched on revenge, of course, and it made me think about the films through this light.

It seems that revenge is one of those things that I never really think about, especially in film. Whereas whenever I see adultery or other things like that, I immediately balk and begin ranting about how a movie can glorify such things, I never really consider how the notion of revenge is very similar. There are tons of films that are based solely on revenge; in fact, it is a common tenet in most movies—a person is wronged and must get back at the wrongdoer. Nearly any action film has a component like this, and they generally make the wrongdoer the villain and the person seeking revenge is the hero. But this isn’t the way the Bible sees it.

There are plenty of passages in the Bible that condemn the notion of revenge, leaving that for God to decide. There are some others, especially in the Old Testament, that call for revenge, but I think we have to read those as if the people are called out to do God’s direct will. We don’t really have that luxury today, I think. (I understand that there are lots of theological points here that could be debated, and I would love to hear anyone else’s point of view.)

Yet it seems that we still yearn for justice, which is a good thing, right? The desire for revenge may be wrong because of our self-righteous or angry motives, but the underlying desire for justice is right. Of course we want the guilty to be punished. It’s like when someone cuts me off in traffic, and I secretly want them to get a ticket. My dad curses them with “I hope all of your children are born without hair,” but I can’t quite get past simply wishing that they will crash and burn—literally.

But that’s just not right, is it? And it isn’t right when Mel Gibson does it, or Inigo Montoya does it, or Al Pacino, or anyone else. Maybe I need to start thinking about what these revenge movies are telling me, and perhaps even doing to me. Until now, I am ashamed to admit, I have always taken them at face value. They’re just action movies, after all…