The movie. Towards the end, the cops who were tasked with watching Guy trail him to the amusement park. Is there any justification, in the universe of the movie, for the one cop to take out his pistol, on a crowded midway, and try to shoot him? He wasn’t going anywhere. And that’s when the carny running the carrousel gets shot and killed. No tears were shed for him. It would have been great if the runaway carrousel, when it collapsed, had killed the cop as well as Bruno.
None at all. It’s like when Bert the cop takes a shot at crazy George in Pottersville and manages to not hit a person while he shoots out a letter in the sign.
It was a weird time.
Yes, it was pretty stupid of the cop, since Guy was shouting at Bruno very loudly at the time, and was running towards Bruno and the carousel. But I’m sure he got a stern talking-to from his gruff but soft-hearted superior officer, the next day back in the office.
The police were all but certain that Guy Haines was a dangerous and desperate guy guilty of at least one murder. They were also assuming that he wanted “innocent” Bruno dead. It’s a thriller, for goodness sake, not a documentary. It’s full of wild coincidences and leaps of fancy. And THAT one moment is what bothers you. That said, just look at the news. It’s not as if trigger-happy cops don’t do irrational things all the time. Also, that cop’s act triggers one of the all-time great movie sequences which more than justifies it. As Hitchcock used to say, “Logic is dull.” And for the person who commented “It was a weird time” … what 2025 isn’t a weird time, maybe the weirdest, darkest, dumbest timeline in memory?
Unless you’re the innocent bystander or child even that gets killed by some dumass cop’s bullet. There’s a reason they teach cops to check the target background and make sure if they miss they don’t shoot some innocent person.
There’s no justification for either shooting, and yet movies show them as if they are. That’s how “accidents” happen.
I stand by my comment.