# Movies without moral redemption: Any? Possible?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 18, 2006, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660 "2006-12-18T17:59:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/1 "2006-12-18T17:59:52Z")
This OP was inspired by _The Devil Wears Prada_, which I saw last night.
I won’t spoil any of that movie, but let me make up a generic plot that’s not unsimilar: A nice girl is failing in life, but has good friends, a nice lover, and leads a good and honest life. Wanting more success, she sells out. She sucks up to a materialistic and opportunistic mentor, and soon takes on those qualities herself. She becomes a mean bitch, and screws over her friends. In doing this, she becomes extremely successful.
This is often the plot of light comedies. The question is: Can the movie end this way, or must there be a “redemption moment”, when the protagonist realizes the error of her ways and returns to her old life (possibly better off in wisdom) at the expense of success? Is a redemption moment necessary?
As an example, in _Rock Star_, that movie would have felt really cheap had Chris gone on to great success upon losing his friends and girlfriend. His fall from grace back into mediocrity gave the movie heart. That was his “redemption moment.”
Is it possible for a movie to not have a redemption? Let’s exclude revenge movies, as they are a seperate breed. Screwball comedies as well. And any movie where the protagonist never climbs the corporate/social/fame ladder by stepping on the backs of others.
The only example I can think of is _A Shock to the System_, and even that can be interpreted as a revenge story.
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### Author:  [@muzzynyc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muzzynyc)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/2 "2006-12-18T18:14:07Z")
Requiem for a Dream
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/3 "2006-12-18T18:18:00Z")
**The Talented Mr. Ripley.** Ripley betters his lot in the most selfish ways possible, and hasn’t changed at all in the end.
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/4 "2006-12-18T18:18:24Z")
_The Unforgiven_.
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### Author:  [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/5 "2006-12-18T18:24:22Z")
The Departed, maybe?
IIRC Wahlberg’s character is the only main character left standing at the end, and everyone had pretty much fulfilled their good guy/bad guy roles. Nobody went to the dark side then came back.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/6 "2006-12-18T18:24:24Z")
_The Talented Mr. Ripley_ (and the Ripley stories in general) features a character who lies, steals and kills his way to wealth and social status without ever suffering any consequences or any redemptive moments.
_American Psycho_ is about a yuppie serial killer who never gets caught but I think my first example is closer to what the OP is asking for.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/7 "2006-12-18T18:26:02Z")
And it looks like **RealityChuck** beat me to the Ripley example.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/8 "2006-12-18T18:30:02Z")
_Leaving Las Vegas_? No redemption there, IIRC. Of course, the entire plot of the movie was headed the opposite direction of the OP…
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### Author:  [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/9 "2006-12-18T18:32:45Z")
_The Player._
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/10 "2006-12-18T18:40:05Z")
[QUOTE=Snooooopy]
_The Player._
[/QUOTE]
I haven’t seen most of these, but that’s a good example. I guess the tone of the movie sort of sets up the ending. The difference between a light comedy and a dark one, in this case, has to do with more than the lighting.
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### Author:  [@The\_Unkempt\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Unkempt_One)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/11 "2006-12-18T18:40:39Z")
[_Kids_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113540/)
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/12 "2006-12-18T18:41:01Z")
[The Grifters](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099703/)
[The Shape of Things](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308878/)
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### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/13 "2006-12-18T18:44:12Z")
Everybody Loves Sunshine. Two Manchester, England, gangsters get out of prison. Their old gang welcomes them back, but one of them wants to go straight, the other is eager to gangster again. The one who wants to go straight gets involved with a day care center set up by a gay dance troupe and strikes up a relationship with its attractive (straight, female) owner.
What he doesn’t know is that his ex-partner is a deeply closeted gay (i.e., from himself as well as others) and is in love with him. When gay guy finds out about this romance with an actual woman, he gets together a few of his gangster crew, and they kidnap the day care owner, gang rape her and beat the living hell out of her. They spend some time dragging her around looking half dead, then have another member of the gang strangle her to death and toss her body in a furnace. Then they kill a lot of other gangsters, and the two of them have to go on the lam together, which makes the gay gangster very happy. But while they’re in the airport waiting to cheese it, the guy who did the strangling calls the good gangster and tells him he thinks the closeted gay gangster is nuts, and tells him about having to kill the girlfriend.
The End.
No redemption I could see. Nobody learned anything. No hugging. Plus it was a badly made movie. I don’t know if it was meant to be a movie without redemption or if it was just so stupid that they left out the redemption by accident. It was a very bad movie in just about any respect.
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### Author:  [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/14 "2006-12-18T18:47:23Z")
_Payback_
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### Author:  [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/15 "2006-12-18T18:47:45Z")
I realize that _Daredevil_ was SUPPOSED to have a redemption story behind it, but “I won’t kill people, I’ll just permanently cripple them” doesn’t seem like a great moral leap to me…
YMMV, of course.
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/16 "2006-12-18T18:49:31Z")
_Chinatown_
The pedophile gets the young girl and watches his twisted, broken daughter die, thereby getting away with it in the full view of the police. Doesn’t get much less non-redemptive than that.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/17 "2006-12-18T18:51:41Z")
_Memento, Payback_ and _Yojimbo_ (“Try to kill me!” “It’ll hurt”) spring to mind.
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### Author:  [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/18 "2006-12-18T18:51:56Z")
But American Psycho does have themes of the decadence of the 80’s…The greed and detachment, its more than just a slasher.
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### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/19 "2006-12-18T18:53:26Z")
[QUOTE=VunderBob]
_Payback_
[/QUOTE]
At least in Payback the Mel Gibson character was done wrong by his gangster buddies and had ample reason to want to pay them back (hence the title.) The day care center owner’s crime was falling in love. For this she gets gang-raped, beaten repeatedly then strangled to death. It’s not the same thing.
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### Author:  [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2006, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-without-moral-redemption-any-possible/384660/20 "2006-12-18T18:55:40Z")
In Crimes and Misdemeanors features a married man who gets rid of his mistress through his mob connected brother and not only gets away with it, he eventually gets over it, too.
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